Technology advancement is taking place across different industries and even healthcare too is trying its best to get maximum information about patients to know more about their behaviors, disease patterns, and thus improve care. Wearable technology has proved to be a disruptive solution in this industry and right from simple health bands to complex medical devices, wearables now seem to be offering strong support inpatient care.
The implementation of IoT in healthcare through the medium of wearables has now helped in achieving real-time monitoring of patients over the last few years. Such wearable devices are said to be playing a significant role in collecting essential information about patient health and thus helping healthcare providers to deliver the right treatment and take necessary preventive measures to optimize the outcome.
There are some wearables and medical devices which have proved to be equally useful for the patients and health practitioners, and the same has been listed down here:
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AliveCor
AliveCor brings to you a personal EKG device that is portable in nature and you can use it to save lives simply by keeping it in your pockets. This device is capable of recording EKG in just 30 seconds and passing it on to the smartphone. This device is FDA approved and can be used to detect normal heart rate, Tachycardia, Atrial Fibrillation, or Bradycardia.
The data can be shared with medical professionals directly to get opinions and even tracked over time. All that the user needs to do is to place their finger on the sensor and information will be collected in a few seconds. This way you don’t have to go with the messy way of getting information like using gels or patches or wires. Last year AliveCor announced getting in partnership with Huami smartwatches and together they plan to come up with a highly intelligent heart-healthcare platform in the arena of wearables.
Proteus Digital Health’s Solution
In the case of mental health disorders, patients begin to stop taking medicines once they start to feel better. In short, medical adherence remains the top issue when treating patients with such long-term disorders. This is where you have the monitoring system from Proteus Digital Health. Here, in this case, the pill that the patient takes comes with a sensor.
So once the patient takes in the pill, the sensor in it sends a message to the wearable device. From there the information is transmitted to an app on the smartphone. The app is then made accessible to caregivers and physicians. Thus it can be assured that the patient is taking medicine regularly.
AVA
AVA is all about tracking period cycles for women. It gives better insights into women’s health. This wearable has to be used at night when sleeping and it lets you get insights on things like pregnancy, fertility, and health in general. If the woman is pregnant then she can use this wearable to know about her stress levels and to track sleep and weight.
SmartSleep Wearable from Philips
SmartSleep wearable that comes from Philips is a soft headband that has sensors and can be worn on the head. The wearable lets people know more about the sleep needs of an individual and offer solutions accordingly. People who are looking for ways to improve their sleep can use this wearable as a sleep analyzer and it can help them in a great manner in terms of improving their sleep.
The wearable can be used to monitor the sleep cycles and can help those individuals who sleep late or early, or have issues in getting enough sleep. The wearable comes with audio tunes and can help in enhancing the duration and depth of sleep. It is possible to log metrics related to one’s sleep by connecting an app with the wearable and thereby tips and guidance can be received to get a good night’s sleep. This makes this wearable a good device in terms of healthcare.
Smart hearing aids
Hearing aids have come a long way since it was first developed. Now you can find “smart hearing aids” in the market which come with the best sensor technologies. Some of the smart hearing aids are working in a direction to act more than just any hearing aid. They can focus on specific sounds by filtering noise selectively.
Patients who face the issue of ringing in the ears can also benefit from such advanced and smart hearing aids. Starkey Hearing Technologies has come up with its latest product named Livio AI wherein sensors and AI are combined into wearable devices to even track health metrics like heart rate apart from helping with hearing.
Smart Stop
Smart Stop comes from Chrono Therapeutics and this smart device has been developed with the single aim of stopping people from smoking. This smart device comes with sensors that keep on monitoring the changes happening in the body. It detects the craving for cigarettes or nicotine by putting some algorithms to work. So this way it will deliver medicine to the device-user which can help them to control their craving.
This smart device even comes with an application that will provide information regarding the ill effects of smoking and will motivate people to quit it.
TEMPTRAQ
Traditional thermometers are no more in the league. Now you have TempTraq to measure the temperature of the babies throughout the 24-hr cycle in times of an illness without any kind of interruptions. This temperature reader comes as a soft patch and even Bluetooth sensors are embedded in it.
This patch can be placed under the arm of the child without any hassle and it will keep on monitoring the child. This way you will not have to check the temperature regularly at different intervals. The best thing about the wearable is that it measures the temperature accurately and the device has been tested to meet the standard of ASTM E1112-00. This standard is what clinical digital thermometers are expected to meet.
Mojo Lens
Mojo Lens comes from a California-based startup named Mojo Vision. Mojo Lens makes use of augmented reality to overlay information in front of your vision without actually stopping your original view. Here the information is directly projected into your retina. This clearly means you get to augment the things you see in the real world in different ways. It will become possible to offer enhanced augmented reality experiences to the users by using an image sensor, a compatible wearable and with some built-in image processing. This way, users will be able to have ‘hands-free’ information available at their disposal all the time.
Zephyr Anywhere’s BioPatch
This is another patch that you can add to the list of wearables in the healthcare stream. This BioPatch comes from Zephyr Anywhere and it can be used to track different health parameters of the patients every minute simply by attaching it to the chest. In case there are some changes in the health condition of the patient then a message will be sent by the patch to the smartphone of the doctors and nurses. This way care can be delivered at the earliest. Moreover, such constant patient monitoring will also let the patient know when they can leave the hospital once stable.
Blinq
Blinq brings to you a collection of wearable rings that is the perfect combination of function and class. This IoT-based wearable device comes from a Montreal-based startup and it comes with distinct features like fitness tracking, notifications with LED lights, and SOS distress feature which can send alerts for you on Facebook.
Compared to the general smartwatches, smart rings are light, easy to be worn, and can be part of your jewelry collection. This smart ring comes with 48 hours of battery life, is water-resistant, available in different styles and sizes, and works well with more than 150 iOS/Android apps.
iTBra from Cyrcadia Health
iTBra is a smart bra that comes from Cyrcadia Health and it helps in keeping track of breast health. The bra comes with sensors embedded in it which will keep a track of the rhythms and conditions of the breast tissues and can detect any anomalies in terms of cancer. The smart bra comes with an application too which can help in the continuous flow of information to the smart device used by the user and thus help in keeping up good health.
Wireless patient monitoring
For any healthcare organization, remote patient monitoring is becoming a top priority now. This helps them save costs and time in delivering effective healthcare services. Such wearables make life easier for medical professionals too. For example, some of such wireless patient monitoring solutions can keep a track of a patient’s movement and position. The wearable helps the caregivers to ensure the safety of the patients in a better manner.
Patient identity management from Zebra Technologies
For delivering healthcare, proper patient identification becomes crucial. A wrong diagnosis of the medical condition has led to an increased mortality rate across the world. So to tackle this issue, Zebra Technologies which is based in the UK has developed wearable devices that can help with improved patient identity management.
This kind of wearable device comes with wristbands that come with radio-frequency identification tags. Such tags come with digital images and records related to healthcare and software which can help with image processing. The system asks the doctors to use PDA and check the wristbands of the patient before prepping for surgery. This will avoid any kind of miscommunication or misidentifications that can occur from the end of healthcare services and they will even have updated information about the patient. Such kind of wearable can help the hospital to reduce human errors drastically.
Final thoughts
Wearables and such medical devices are going to stay here. So far they have done well in terms of helping with disease prevention, spotting at the right time, and helping take enough precautionary measures. The introduction of technologies like IoT makes the solution more sophisticated; helps automate things and reduces human intervention. It makes the flow of data smoother while ensuring security and privacy concerns are met.
