Wearable Adoption Must Turn Focus on Chronic Illness Populations

Healthcare providers and payers looking to leverage patient-generated health data through consumer wearable adoption are going to have to broaden the userbase, specifically tapping into chronic illness populations, according to a new report from Forrester, received via email.

Consumer Wearables Generate Good Data, But It’s From The Wrong Consumers — And It’s Not Helping Healthcare Providers outlines how patient-generated health data (PGHD) has the potential to supplement both provider and payer care management strategies, but currently, the PGHD pool is limited.

Insights:

Consumer wearables generate good data but it does not help healthcare providers much. Instead, patient-generated health data (PGHD) gleaned from patient wearables and remote patient monitoring devices has the potential to augment chronic care management strategies by healthcare practitioners. PGHD is not only useful for payers but is also helpful for engaging patients particularly in chronic care management (CCM) plans, diagnosing and detecting medical conditions, managing health conditions, etc. 

Patient care is holistic. This means the care should continue even when the patient is discharged from the hospital and is staying at home. There is no doubt that the adoption of RPM using appropriate health technologies will play a major role in the delivery of healthcare services. The bigger question however is which hospitals and practitioners lead the way for their patients first to become more profitable and equipped with state-of-the-art in the changing dynamics.

Opportunities:

Currently, patient wearables and RPM devices are largely underused. Healthcare providers as well as insurers have an opportunity to motivate their patients with chronic conditions to utilize wearables if they subsidize these devices. Wearable adoption will be easier when the focus turns to chronic illnesses. 

Read on patientengagementhit.com