The digital health goes from wearable technology – Wired.it

If today we can control our health with smartphones, in short you can add remote consultations and visits remote. And if you do not pay a pledge movement with an app

Posted:

April 16, 2014

(Photo: Getty Images)

App for smartphones, subcutaneous chip, guided remotely. Patients and big medical industry are ready to open the doors to new market. And health, soon, it could also become a digital business . Confirmation of this comes “The Digital Health Revolution,” the report on the digital health signed by the International Hotwire. “The Digital Health is experiencing tremendous growth worldwide. Only in the United States in 2013, investment in digital health increased by 39% over the previous year, reaching a total of 1.9 billion dollars, “ according to the report just published.

But among the main trends in growth, in the context of digital health, stands wearable technology, wearable tech , from which we can wear sensors located anywhere and in constant dialogue with our smartphones. Products like Fitbit, Nike FuelBand and Jawbone UP bracelets that track our physical activities, contribute now with $ 5 billion to the turnover of wearable technology. And in addition to becoming fashionable items, helping to keep under control kilometers traveled and calories burned in a span of time to create databases also significant for the development of diets ad hoc for each. And although all to be confirmed, the predictions are wasted on a market that by 2018 could reach $ 50 billion in sales worldwide.

“But why go out to visit the doctor , or a check of the blood, when you can stay at home? “ are asking rhetorically to Hotwire, alluding to the new frontier of visit remote . With a site like 23andme is now possible to obtain the map of the human genome by simply sending a specimen to the laboratory in Los Angeles. With just under 100 dollars, however, you can buy the wrist blood pressure monitor in real time signed iHealth Wireless, which of course will track the progress step by step on your smartphone. But with the development of sensors and processors getting thinner , like a pacemaker for the heart, we can now insert the chip under the skin can even monitor the health of other organs. “Advances that have been made only a few years ago,” -explanatory Hotwire. Is not exactly easy, in fact, install inside the human body and hardware devices with a high rate of rejection, even with acute risks to the health of the patient.

In addition to the hardware, though, here’s the software apps for DIY health . According to the report, the amount of medical applications is getting ready to cross the threshold of 100 thousand today 20% of smartphone owners have at least one, but it is estimated that by 2017 users of the category Health and Well-being will be one in two . “So another phenomenon worth mentioning is definitely the rise of m-health , the mobile health, certainly among the trend of industry-leading.” By visiting distance the patient can save disbursements for travel and consultation, while the “advice” of the specialist can also cross the threshold of reality isolated or difficult to reach. With apps like STD Triage, for example, with a smartphone you can request a consultation at a distance on sexually transmitted diseases. And sometimes the immediacy of feedback between the diagnosis of the patient and the next of the physician, can help even the dialogue and the administration of personalized care and based on the recorded data. Thank GymPact, however, a simple application for Android and iOS nailing lazy to its responsibilities: the user signs a pact to which it undertakes to perform some exercises that the app is able to monitor. If the weekly schedule is met, the user will receive cash prizes of . Otherwise, the income is taken a similar amount (a few dollars) as a pledge for the extract of the agreement. A nice way to emphasize the importance and continue to beat the paths of digital health, the new market for companies and patients.