Smart wearables to unlock the next level of precision medicine

Veronika Vartanova is a mobility researcher at Iflexion, a software development company based in Denver, Colorado. She writes on the latest trends in mobile app development, AR and VR business integration, and mobile-first digital transformation.

Wearables have come a long way from being merely entertaining to bringing in tangible health benefits.

Early on, bands with basic functionality were mostly appreciated by fitness enthusiasts and professional athletes. A few years later, the variety and capabilities of wearables evolved way beyond counting steps taken and calories burnt. Next generations of smart clips, rings and watches expanded their data collection and analytical abilities toward overall health and activity awareness. They began identifying individual patterns related to the user’s mood, sleep quality and vitals.

As soon as wearables became more functional, they evolved from the “sports-only” category to personal smart gear. Such democratization surged the adoption and attracted multiple user groups with goals beyond explicit association with sports and fitness.

Now, wearables are rather trivial, marketed as personal devices for anybody who is interested to make more informed choices about their health and lifestyle. They stand in one row with other essential things some people can’t leave their homes without, such as a wallet, a smartphone, headphones or keys.

This trend of personalized health tracking and wellness awareness fell in line with the value-based care paradigm and its focus on precision medicine. The current healthcare industry aspires to use wearables as a primary data source to create highly personal and flexible patient treatment plans, allowing the introduction of timely therapy modifications based on slight changes in health patterns.