Wearable devices are getting popular these days, especially among those who are health conscious and love to train their bodies by physical exercises. These wearable devices have also evolved from simply recording your heart rate or how many steps you walk, into sophisticated sport coaching assistant.
On the health care side, some e-health companies have developed innovative products that could be integrated with health care and social service providers to come up with new services for elderly or people with chronic diseases. A good case is a French e-health company called Withings. It has developed a range of products, that can keep track of your daily activities, sleep pattern, blood pressure and vital signs that reflect the health of your heart and blood vessels. Each device is connected seamlessly with a mobile app. For example, their wireless blood pressure monitor will take your blood pressure automatically when you wrap it in the right position of your arm. These readings are then transferred to the mobile app. The data will be displayed as charts or dashboard in the app, and you can share your health reports with your care giver, health professionals or family members.
Withings has also made a smart balance recently. Not only can it monitor your body weight, fat mass and BMI, it can also measure your Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV), that is considered as a very important indicator that reflects the health conditions of your heart. Very few people, even the health professionals have heard about PWV, because the equipment to measure PWV is too expensive in the past. Now, Withings makes a device that can measure your PWV at a very affordable price.
For health care and social service professionals, the good news is not only about how smart each device is, but what new service models we can build with all these emerging e-health solutions. For example, a day care rehabilitation centre for stroke survivors can provide a watch like activity tracker and a wireless blood pressure monitor for each person undergoing their rehabilitation program. The activity tracker and the blood pressure monitor together cost less than HK$2000. With these devices in place, the stroke survivors, their family members, social workers and medical professionals can access to a real time health dashboard that will keep track of the blood pressure, sleep quality and daily physical activity. Each day, the mobile app will tell the user whether he or she has achieved the goals of waking 10000 steps or 8 hours of quality sleep. The blood pressure chart will also indicate any abnormalities. The health care professionals can step in and take quick actions if the readings are too high that may trigger another stroke event. There are so many possibilities to make use of these new technologies, shifting the current remedial approach to health care to a preventive approach that can engage numerous stakeholders together. The cost to prevent any mishaps such as falling on the ground, is just a fraction of the cost to treat a person with bone fracture. It is time to start a revolution in community health care.
Withings Blood Pressure Monitor, Activity Tracker, and the App- Health Mate :