TECHNOLOGY
“ BY CAPITALISING ON HYBRID IT ENVIRONMENTS , HEALTHCARE CAN TAKE ANOTHER LEAP FORWARD IN PROACTIVE CARE ”
NICOLE FAGEN DIRECTOR , PRODUCT MANAGEMENT , BROADCOM
" This is happening across the healthcare industry ; a lot of these devices now send data to doctors in real time . Years ago , I wore a heart monitor for medical reasons for a while . I had to bring the device back to my doctors and they would download the data from the device so they could do their assessment . Now it ’ s all done remotely ." But while the devices are becoming ever more sophisticated , Fagen says there is a way to go in terms of analysing the date efficiently .
" These tools are literally creating billions of pieces of data every day , which is good news for medical professionals who rely on information to keep individuals and communities healthy . Unfortunately , the infrastructure needed to collect , store , and analyse this data is often years or decades behind the wearables that create and transmit it ," she says .
To really make best use of it , she says there needs to be an integrated system to collect it . " Because there are so many different devices on the market today , it is difficult for hospital IT departments to get a holistic evaluation of patients who track their daily runs with a Fitbit , their heart rate with an Apple Watch , their glucose levels with a DexCom , and their food intake with the MyFitnessPal app ," she says .
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