Considering the patient perspective when prescribing medical wearables (2 March 2022)

Summary

Wearable devices are a modern marvel.

They teach users exactly how many calories you can burn by running up a flight of stairs, record sleep patterns down to the minute a neighbour’s safety light wakes you up, monitor your heart rate and alert you if anything gets out of whack, and even control your music during a workout.

And that’s not even touching on the medical wearables that patients use to manage chronic conditions.

We’re living in a time when so much information is available on our wrists or in our palms, and these devices are improving the lives and health of users all over the world.

And yet, they’re not perfect.

Software Advice surveyed over 450 US patients who currently use medically-prescribed wearable devices to better understand their experiences.

Content

Key findings:

• 1 in 5 patients says their wearable device is hard to use.
• The majority of patients who are manually inputting data (87%) have recorded inaccurate data on their wearable devices.
• Of these, 85% said the error occurred because the user interface was hard to understand.
• Despite challenges, patients still see the benefits of wearables: 49% of patients cited the biggest benefit of their wearable as a better understanding of their own health.