Wearables produce huge amounts of health data

Cardiologist Dr. David Kao is used to patients walking into appointments armed with data from their wearables; he finds most of it clinically unusable, though occasionally a few readings prove invaluable. The health system, built for episodic care, struggles to handle a continuous stream of metrics.

Absorbing wearable data into electronic health records is difficult: separate company clouds must communicate, patient data must be matched to the correct record, and providers juggle many proprietary accounts and inconsistent formats. Providers also face questions about validity and governance.

Metrics like recovery and strain do not always translate into clinical meaning, and clinicians must weigh whether to store vast amounts of data and for how long; dismissing wearable readings risks alienating engaged patients while acting on inaccurate readings risks harm.

wearables, health data, ehr integration, interoperability, cardiologist, continuous monitoring, data governance, data validity, patient engagement, proprietary accounts