Wearable Tech and Telehealth

Years ago, I was a contributor for the student newspaper The Reflector at Mississippi State University. I published articles under news, opinion, and life categories. In one particular opinion article (pdf) originally published in September, 2014, I am found invoking the famous “Websters Dictionary defines…” to discuss the innovation of the Apple Watch. My opinion in the article was that the watch was fashion, and that Apple would fail miserably, and here I am now eating crow.

As I write, I’m wearing an Apple Watch. It’s only my second device in 6 years and I can say it has definitely changed my relationship to technology in ways I didn’t anticipate. More on that later.

Telehealth and wearables

In 2021, my colleague Jack Mazza completed an honors thesis in which he surveyed the future of wearable technology in telehealth. His work included building a sample app and generating data using his own wearable and canvassing healthcare professionals at University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. His proof-of-concept app demonstrated to Jack the various data his own wearable offered him, and his survey questions reflected a perspective of telehealth and wearable data that is well-rounded. You can read his findings for yourself by reviewing his thesis (pdf), and here’s a quick quote that will convince you it’s worth 5 minutes of your time:

The results showed overwhelmingly that healthcare professionals believe wearable technology could greatly aid the Tele-Health communications process for both patients and healthcare workers alike. The addition of the data could help many diagnoses be more accurate and give patients better care.

In general, Jack’s main question was about whether wearable data was considered trustworthy by medical professionals. The findings are generally optimistic about wearable tech and its impact on simplifying communications between doctors and patients.

My experience with wearable tech

My first Apple Watch was a Series 3, which I believe was the first time the product was offered with cellular. I managed to keep that device for over 2 years before I upgraded to a Series 6. Not only have the devices withstood my normal traffic, I was able to sell my first watch on the cheap.

One of the first things I realized when I started wearing an Apple Watch was that I received way too many push notifications. Since then, nearly everything is silenced except for text messages and phone calls. The watch had replaced the buzzing in my pocket and made me more concious of how often my phone distracts me.

The health tracking features of the Apple Watch are primarily what Jack’s thesis explored and I can attest to their own usefulness in my life. It has been an infrequent occurrence but I have experienced occasional panic attacks. The meditation feature on the watch helped me practically by giving me an activity I could focus on to calm down during some attacks, as well as giving me biometric feedback by showing my heart rate was lowering over time.

I haven’t needed to share the data with any doctors yet but every now and then I make use of the ECG feature introduced in the Series 6 to graph my heart rate.

Conclusion

Wearable tech and telehealth should be adopted in areas with low access.

michaellamb.dev announcements

I will be hosting a podcast session for jxnfilmclub in my dev Discord server on July 12

Anyone is welcome to join the conversation, just reach out to me on my server or by DM for more details

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