Tag: fitbit

Pre-symptomatic data from smartwatches hailed as future virus protection

Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, General, Health, Politics, Software, Technology, Technology News

Smartwatches have been touted as a future way to identify COVID-19 patients before testing from pre-symptomatic data. Devices such as the Apple Watch and Fitbit smartwatches have been labelled as a potential future warning system for detecting if people have become infected by viruses such as COVID-19 – before even a test would. 

The digitised watches are essentially simply very small computers taking on the form of a watch. Simpler devices such as the Fitbit are closed system items that focus solely on collecting biometric data from their wearer. Apple Watches and other similar brands are more complex, often including phone data, updates on notifications and graphics for their users. 

Wearable smartwatches such as the Fitbit as well as other brands such as Garmin, gather biometrics information on their users which is then used to let them know if they are keeping up with their fitness goals. Information collected can include activities such as exercise measured from the number of steps you take, distance travelled and active minutes. Other data could be focused on how much sleep the user is getting and when they are entering specific sleep stages. Females are also able to record menstrual health data, whilst those interested in weight loss can keep track of their calories burned for the day. 

Smartwatches such as the Apple Watch and Fitbit have the benefit of measuring user data over long periods of time, making it possible for them to identify unusual inputs in the data such as temperature or heart rate, which could be suggestions of an infection. With pre-symptomatic identification of sick patients potential, it could be possible to isolate and prepare treatment for those infected prior to any testing result. 

With global numbers of newly infected cases and deaths from the coronavirus, hopes for ways into the new normal are well received on the global stage. Only time will tell if there can be a technological way forward out of the pandemic that could aid other further spread prevention measures such as vaccination.

Former CEO of Theranos’ Trial Delayed

Internet of Things (IoT)

Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO of formerly multi-billion dollar valued corporation Theranos, has been awaiting trial since June 2018 over charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Theranos aimed to develop medical technology providing blood analyses and diagnoses outside of a hospital setting. The trial has been delayed until August 2020, granting the defense’s request to further review evidence. The nature of the fraud and the confidence it inspired in investors are important in considering the status of internet-connected medical devices. Maybe we should all review the evidence.

Vision / Reality + Investment / Fraud

As an undergraduate, Holmes imagined a wearable patch that would provide doctors with real-time changes in patients’ blood. This notion of patient data being collectable and analyzable (by patients, doctors, insurance companies, advertisers) inspires most internet-integrated personal medical devices. Refining the patch into a station that could quickly analyze small blood samples, Holmes left school and founded Theranos, securing deals from Safeway and Walgreens to begin implementing these stations at their stores. The product development story doesn’t progress much further than that. After repeated missed deadlines and inconclusive results, both companies cancelled their contracts in 2015 and 2016. Walgreens filed suit and receieved $30 million in damages. 

At the same time, investment and valuation were skyrocketing. Within four years, the company had raised over $40 million. Ten years later, it was up to $400 million, and the company was valued at $9 billion. Over $100 million each was invested by: Rupert Murdoch, Betsy DeVos, Cox Media Group, and the Walton family. Obviously, there was a lot of media coverage during this time, which certainly fueled further investment, despite the concomitant failures of the device itself.

For health or money?

Things that have been energetically invested and promoted that end up failing (Fyre ) are easy routes into the hopes of investors, consumers, and the culture that shapes them. The dream of a pocket doctor is for patients not just to be able to record their medical data from outside of a clinic—like a FitBit might—but also to offer algorithmically-produced diagnoses. Devices such as these would, and do, create huge data troves revealing unseen information about users (‘patients’ seems less applicable at this point). That such a large amount of investment in Theranos devices came from retail and media moguls gives good reason to look for other (read: commercial) uses of such a depersonalized (replacing both the doctor and patient with figures) collection and analysis of medical information. The market for internet-connected healthcare devices was estimated two years ago to reach over $130 billion by 2021.