Title: Wellness and healthcare management in the age of wearable technology
Abstract:
In this day and age, advancement in technology has become a way of life. Computer devices are no longer items that we use in our homes and places of work, carry in our bags and pockets. We can now wear those devices. There are a wide range of types of these wearable technologies that now includes implantable devices. It holds great potential in reshaping the health provision and has a positive impact on the wearer’s health. We are seeing growing numbers of users actively changing their behavior for the better with the adoption of wearable devices. Integrating them in our lifestyle enhances the quality of life, improves healthcare delivery and medical education.
Wearable devices have evolved and there is an increasing interest in their application in medical settings. It can provide information on patient’s behavior like blood pressure, breathing patterns and blood glucose levels. It can also generate signals detecting activity. Wrist-worn accelerometers assist in the evaluation of sleep quality in healthy subjects as well as in in-patient and ICU settings where poor sleep has been linked with adverse outcomes. There are also wearable devices that can provide information on heart rhythm. Frequent heart rate tracking as a means of enhancing routine monitoring for early detection may enable the wearer to seek medical guidance, otherwise these conditions would likely go undetected for some time. This can also be a component of an early warning system to detect clinical deterioration for patients with chronic diseases. Furthermore, it could enable detailed and near-continuous characterization of recovery following critical illness. It is a means of recording useful information and incredible amount of data.
Advancement in the area of wearable systems will continue to transform and enhance the quality of care. Responsive patient care, challenges and opportunities, and future innovations will be explored in this presentation. In the near future, Healthcare Providers, will inevitably care for patients with wearable technology.
