RamaOnHealthcare January 27, 2021
RamaOnHealthcare and Dr. David Albert, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of AliveCor discusses wearable adoption, artificial intelligence, and the impact of both on the future of care.
RamaOnHealthcare: Welcome, AliveCor, to our thought leadership series. Let me start with a direct question. While heart disease is the leading cause of death globally, the adoption for wearables has been slow. What are the top three barriers to wearable adoption that the community should know?
Dr. David Albert: Actually, I don’t think I would classify wearable adoption as growing slowly—I think we’ve seen it accelerate. In fact, Gartner expects global wearable device spending will reach $81.5 billion this year, which is an almost 20% increase from last year. The pandemic undoubtedly sped up this adoption as people sought ways to monitor their own health safely from home, while still sharing data with their healthcare providers. We’ve certainly seen our users do this. In fact, we saw a marked increase in ECG recordings since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But, if there is anything slowing down the adoption rate, it’s probably price. Many smartwatches with an integrated ECG cost hundreds of dollars. That may simply not be an accessible price point for many.
RamaOnHealthcare: In the U.S., we do not have an ecosystem for health management, data sharing, etc. Do you see the wearable as the digital front door to this?
Dr. David Albert: Based on our experience at AliveCor, I do think that wearables and digital health tools are a major pathway toward building an ecosystem of health management and data sharing. Today, patients and physicians alike expect more in terms of both the amount of data they can share and with whom they can share it with. We can now log our physical activity, blood pressure, ECGs and more—these data points are typically gathered with separate devices, but are very much intertwined. When this data is integrated into one ecosystem, patients will have a more holistic view of their health history, and in turn, physicians may more easily develop care plans, which hopefully lead to better outcomes.
RamaOnHealthcare: While the pandemic expedited the adoption of telehealth, we’re not seeing the same demand for remote patient monitoring (RPM) and chronic care management (CCM). What are your views on creating a comprehensive environment for day-to-day health management?
Dr. David Albert: I think that the pandemic has certainly increased the demand for RPM and CCM, but there’s still work to be done in making these platforms comprehensive and sufficient for day-to-day management. For example, if every wearable and all health data were fed into a single system, I think patients would be much more willing to adopt new wearables as they wouldn’t have the added burden of worrying about how to share that data with their physician. It’s important that the industry creates an environment that helps both patients and physicians get the most out of the data they’re collecting and in a sufficient and sustainable way, whether for RPM, CCM, or another form of care.
RamaOnHealthcare: Will pairing AI/ML with wearable data enable “personalized health,” ensuring outcomes and saving lives? Please explain.
Dr. David Albert: Absolutely. The more data wearables collect from users, the more information they have to train their artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, and the smarter and more personalized those algorithms become. With this technology in the hands of more patients, they’ll receive better insight into their own heart health and doctors will be able to create more informed care plans—even remotely. This, in turn, leads to better outcomes for patients.
RamaOnHealthcare: Where do you see the market for wearables headed in the coming five years and how is AliveCor positioned?
Dr. David Albert: I don’t think there’s any turning back on the incredible growth in the wearables market, and over the next few years, I expect we’ll see more physicians and consumers than ever adopt the technology. With the sustained interest in telehealth, physicians are going to need medical-grade devices and wearables to collect accurate, clinically validated data from their patients. AliveCor is ready to meet those demands.
We’re the leader in AI-based, personal ECG technology and remote cardiac care, and we’re continuing to pioneer this space. We recently announced an additional $65 million in funding, and we’ll use this financing to continue transforming remote cardiac care, building an accessible, affordable service for consumers, employers, and healthcare providers. We want consumers to monitor their heart rhythm anytime, anywhere and capture rhythm abnormalities during the large majority of time when they’re not right in front of their physician. We want cardiologists to have a more comprehensive view of their patients’ heart health, well beyond a single visit. And we want employers to proactively help employees take better care of their heart health. The services we’re planning will achieve all those goals in the years to come.