Cardiology as a " Collision Point " between Consumer IT and the Healthcare System

In arecent tweet, Matthew Herper, who covers science and medicine forForbes, pointed out that cardiology will be an important"collision" point between consumer IT and the practice of medicine. He's right on target as I have emphasized in a recent note about the importance of clinical information being generated by Apple watches and similar wearables (see:Apple Collaborates with Janssen on Apple Watch AFib/Stroke Clinical Trial). This note is also related to my previous notes about wearables and skin patches (see:Is Healthcare Ready to Embrace the Consumer"Wearable";Fitbit Moves into the Health Coaching Area with Fitbit Care;AT&T Offers the LTE-M, Low-Powered Network for Uploading Wearable Health Data).One of the reasons that this"collision" is occurring between IT and cardiovascular diseases in particular is that the latter can be assessed partly by analyzing blood pressure, pulse, and EKG. These measurements are achievable today with Apple watches and competitors. By way of contrast, liver disease diagnosis requires the measurement of serum analytes likeAST and ALT. Transdermal testing of metabolites, drugs, and biomarkers is not yet ready for the general public (see:Rapid, low cost prototyping of transdermal devices for personal healthcare monitoring). Another factor that promotes the use of wearables to assess cardiovascular status is that IT enthusiasts like Eric Topol is a cardiologist and also writes books and is a...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Healthcare Innovations Lab Industry Trends Lab Processes and Procedures Lab Regulation Medical Consumerism Point-of-Care Testing Preventive Medicine Quality of Care Test Kit Source Type: blogs