The True Burden of Connected Health?
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
| Ravi Nemana
Much like the Cambrian Explosion that gave rise to modern biodiversity, there is an explosion of diversity in consumer devices underway today. Devices such as iPods™, smart phones, laptops and PDAs promise the ability to personally adapt to the needs, wants, and capabilities of the people who use them. With these diverse devices and through other, specialty medical devices, come the potential to deliver healthcare through the same channels as entertainment and communication. However, there is a banal, nuanced and interesting question that we will have to answer in order for adoption to occur: What will we carry?
A walk through a crowd will readily illustrate the problem: people's pockets, jackets, purses, and backpacks bulge and sag with the weight and heft of devices. Each person today will leave their house with at least three or four things-- keys, cell phone, and purse/wallet, and possibly a music player. Add to this the armament of many workers: the laptop and PDA. Then add the accoutrements-- cables, couplers, chargers, and extra batteries (which is an issue of its own). Now add specific tools for connected health-- the task-specific medical device such as a glucometer, spirometer, blood pressure cuff, or other device-- only some of which can be integrated well with existing devices (and then only with specific models). One practically needs a bandoleer to hold all of the equipment. The trend is so strong that the fashion and textile industries have begun to include extra pockets for devices and holes for cable access.
What does this mean for connected health? Just this: we face a backlash from consumers (who are also patients) who balk at the volume of devices that they must carry. While convergence is the long-term trend, the short and intermediate terms are crucial for adoption. If the devices we conceive can't be made practical enough, convenient enough, unobtrusive enough, and/or "useful-enough-to-carry," then the promise of connected health can't be fulfilled. Rather than a Cambrian Explosion, we may face a devolution.
The questions this implies are profound, and, interestingly, NOT technological: Can medical functions be made modular to leverage (or consolidate) the platforms that exist today? Can the profit motive that provides an incentive for device innovation be maintained while allowing for the standardized, modular additions for medical use? Can devices be brought to market where medical functions can be added in standardized ways-- a "plug and play" (tm) for consumer medical devices? Can a model for connected health be developed where "re-creation" or "re-programming" or other "re-work" can be minimized as models and device characteristics change? In the end, what will we carry?