Ask The Experts! Panel Discussion Wearables: We Can Measure, But Can We Monetize?

 


Moderated by
Elisabeth George
Vice President - Global Government Affairs,
Standards & Regulations
Philips Healthcare





SESSION ABSTRACT
Wearables are an integral part of consumers’ well-being. Consumers are captivated by the idea of wearables but do they hold longevity and how can the healthcare community benefit from this fascination for true success?  

KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• A framework to identify what a wearable is and why it’s needed in today’s continuum of healthcare
• Insights on benefits and risks – consumers, economic and clinical outcomes
• Critical factors to sustainability of wearables and identify potential ways to solve

OVERVIEW
A diverse group of industry professionals discussed how wearable health products support patients' needs today and how they will do so in the future.  Although wearables are in a period of experimentation, next steps include bringing data to an A.I. application on smart phones, getting wearables devices into the right hands, getting people to engage with the devices, and then getting important data…not for your company, but for your customer.

Key insights about the multibillion dollar wearables market include the importance of integrating these devices into the consumer’s lifestyle and updating them to be waterproof and stay charged.

Wearables and other consumer technologies have disrupted the payment and reimbursement model.  Also, in the developing world, there is enormous market potential for wearables, but price and infrastructure are barriers.  Infectious disease and infant mortality are much higher concerns in the developing world.  Yet, the current thinking concerning this technology seems more focused on the developed world. This stratification, as well as other issues were discussed during the following question and answer session:

Question: How do you see wearables impacting patients’ lives now and for the future?

Mathew Diamond – We need to make patient support effortless in terms of design and patient experience, we need devices that don’t require charging, and are waterproof, which will help with adherence and compliance issues. Wearables companies have partnered with companies like Speedo and Victoria’s Secret to remove the burden from individuals by utilizing the clothing and apparel they already wear and the lifestyles they currently lead.  Miniaturization puts us on the brink of something revolutionary in terms of the use and practicality of wearables. The regulatory environment also encourages innovation in this area.

Maulik D. Majmudar, M.D. – Currently, the most widely used wearable technologies are limited to wellness applications, such as activity and sleep tracking. However, wearables can impact patient’s lives in a much more significant manner by providing real-time monitoring and/or feedback with actionable insights. Maulik’s organization attempts to address the problem by focusing on validation and implementation of technology-enabled solutions to establish the evidence necessary to drive sustainable clinical adoption. According to Maulik, the most important thing is to foster collaborative alliances among stakeholders such as provider organizations, payers, pharmaceutical companies and start-ups to accelerate the translation of novel technologies into real world clinical practice.

Robert Kaul – His company is on the forefront of “Star Trek” tricorder technology.  Their product monitors vital functions such as resting heart rate and blood pressure on a continuous basis.  Part of the challenge of this technology is patient usability/consumer friendliness. An issue: Large corporations are reluctant to invest in new technology without assurance of reimbursement.

Brian Markwalter – We are in a period of heavy experimentation on the part of companies as diverse as L’Oréal, a cosmetics company, and medical technology companies.

Jay Rajda – In terms of value creation, one problem is how to separate out chronic-condition applications from lifestyle applications such as weight loss in the area of wearables.  There’s no clear answer as yet as to how to monetize the data derived from wearables as opposed to care management programs.

Bakul Patel – The FDA is concerned with the entire healthcare ecosystem, but it is less concerned with regulating wearables as activity-tracking devices than is the private sector.  The FDA is more concerned with data security issues around connectivity and intended use.

TAKE-AWAY

• 50% of medical costs come from 5% of patients (usually serious chronic conditions)
• If there's evidence of value creation, funding will come
• Given high deductible health plans, subscription services may be viable
• If it's going to be valuable for the consumer, then they'll contribute to the cost
• There's a sharp difference between wellness application and preventative application
• Those with chronic conditions deserve to have the same level of consumer experience
• Try to gather enough evidence of efficacy to gather the payers
• When there's evidence of value creation, things will absolutely change
• Implications right now are too US-centric, which is only a small part of the world population,  there's a lot more market potential
  

FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

• Wearables will have a much bigger and faster impact globally once the breakthrough comes; the need is greater there
• Awareness and cost are the issue right now along with infrastructure
• Other diseases are also the focus globally at the moment
• Wherever you have a cell phone you can have one of these devices, but you need a value based version of them
• Right now where technology is, it’s all about activity tracking, but there's so much more available

FROM A COLLABORATION PERSPECTIVE

• The biggest thing to focus on is formal collaboration alliances: Providers, payers, pharma, and start-ups all have to team up to tackle this issue
• Distribute and target the right segments and right population to develop programs with all of this data to create value
• Improve targeting and distribution of these devices
• There are responsible ways to use these tools that we have to come up with as an industry
• Reduce time from conception to getting to consumer

FINAL THOUGHT
While the wearable market has been in a boom recently, we need to worry that the bubble won't pop by finding new innovative ways to use and interpret wearables. Aim for expanding the market globally; just because it's harder for non-US populations to adopt doesn't mean that the biggest market share should be ignored, find a way to reach this global market and increase your customer base.