Leveraging Everyday Wearables for Heart Health Monitoring

By Matt Phillion

A new report from B-Secur looks at new industry findings about the state of wearable heart health technology and the impact it could have on quality of care. Key findings include:

• Over half of providers surveyed report challenges in accurately diagnosing and treating patients with cardiac events because of difficult-to-read ECGs captured by traditional ambulatory devices, such as mobile telemetry or Holter monitors.
• Just 9% of providers surveyed said they were “very satisfied” with consumer wearable devices to monitor the cardiac health of their patients.
• 95% of consumers using wearable devices say they would share the device’s data with medical professionals to monitor their heart health.
• 77% of consumers who use wearable devices for health tracking activities prioritize checking their heart health more than other activities like sleep, blood pressure, or respiratory monitoring.

What does this openness among consumers with sharing their data with their medical providers tell us about where the relationship between wearables and healthcare monitoring is headed?

“The openness doesn’t surprise me. If you look at other industries and circumstances around personal data, consumers are increasingly willing to share their data when there is an exchange of meaningful value,” says Brian Pitstick, CCO of B-Secur. “The ability to improve their health is a huge driver, believing that if I can share this information with my doctor, I may have major benefits to my health.”

That sharing hinges on the ideas of security and privacy: assurances that when a patient does share this data, it is safe.

“That’s still an important consideration for patients,” explains Pitstick. “But it comes with the benefit of being more actively involved in managing your health.”

Comfort with technology and remote healthcare rose during and after the COVID-19 pandemic out of necessity, as patients became more comfortable with telehealth and other forms of remote care.

On the provider side, Pitstick says, physicians and provider groups will need to work to embrace these technology trends because the patients will demand them.

“There still is a lot of opportunity to improve the integration into clinical workflows and data streams,” says Pitstick. “We also need to consider how to continue to improve the accuracy of the devices, which is critical and a key concern for physicians.”

With the continued physician and provider shortage—cardiac care is no exception to the rule in this regard—accurate data that does not cause false alarms or alert fatigue is imperative.

“We want more actionable data, more clinical grade data,” he says. “But the convenience of consumer wearable devices and their ability to be easily worn continuously deliver more proactive monitoring that supports the shift to value-based care. It’s about getting ahead of the curve in terms of learning how to work with them in an effective way to deliver more preventative care and reduce risk for patients.”

“In general, patients have become more educated. For example, preventing stroke,” says Thompson Godfrey, VP of Product Management with B-Secur. “Patients understand that identifying atrial fibrillation may reduce their risk of stroke. The monitoring is not just for the patient themselves. Family and caregivers want to leverage these devices to monitor their loved ones.”

Working through technological challenges

One of the interesting takeaways from the report, Pitstick notes, is that while wearables are used for many things, including fitness and wellness, heart health tracking topped the list of uses. While this is good news about patient education and awareness, it also requires a deeper look at wearables to ensure that they are delivering data of high quality and accuracy.

“Not all devices are created the same,” says Pitstick. “Many of these devices validate their data in controlled settings, and yet we know that consumers use them in much less controlled environments. They’re active, there’s different placement on the body, other factors that can create usability issues.”

The question is: if you’re not in a controlled clinical setting, how do you find a way to get clinical data in a real-world environment?

Another challenge is how these wearables and the data they provide are woven into workflows and data systems.

“If I bring my data to my doctor, the doctor is going to be overwhelmed if it doesn’t fit into their EHR system or platform they’re using to review that data,” says Pitstick.

This dovetails into the question of ensuring things like privacy and security, and patient adherence.

“How do you make it super easy so if you’re a doctor you can recommend this device and make sure there’s no gaps? How do you ensure patients don’t forget to charge the device or forget to put it back on after a shower?” says Pitstick.

“Physicians are already overwhelmed with data,” notes Godfrey. “Getting the clinical grade, actionable diagnostics that clinicians need while ensuring the information gets to the physician and their teams in an efficient way is what will make adoption by the physician much easier.”

So how do we get past the inaccuracy and noise that can be a part of consumer technology?

“Some of the device manufacturers are really getting on board and figuring out how to integrate their data into the EHR and ultimately into the billing process, which is what physicians need,” says Godfrey. “Physicians need to be able to review a report in seconds and then have that report flow seamlessly into their EHR and billing system.”

Improving patient adherence

Continuous monitoring devices like Holter devices will always have a clinical use, but there are creative and innovative uses for consumer wearables that assist patients with long-term monitoring.

“When a consumer wearable becomes integrated into the workflow with remote monitoring patient monitoring program, the staff managing that program will get automated notifications. My patient has not taken their blood pressure for a few days. In this case, someone from the office can reach out to the patient and remind them you need a reading,” says Godfrey. “Or we see you haven’t had your wrist wearable on for a few days. Is it charged? Getting integrated into the workflow at this level will be critical for successful adoption and driving improved outcomes.”

“We also think there’s huge evidence that people want to take more ownership of their person health, in the broader wellness community and among people buying wearables in general,” says Pitstick. “People want the tools that enable them to control their health more proactively on their own.”

That desire to be able to collect and share your own data with your physician in a meaningful way is going to create more push for development, says Pitstick.

“Consumers are going to pull the tech providers along. We hear from physicians all the time that patients are sending them PDFs of their ECGs. They’re sending them because they’re concerned,” says Godfrey. “At the same time, the cost of managing cardiac care is going to explode due to our aging population.  We have to put preventative programs in place to address the growth in cardiovascular disease. Wearables are ubiquitous and nearly anyone could have one, so there’s almost no excuse to not get this data integrated.”

Patients are going to ask for this technology to advance, and so the industry will need to be ready, says Pitstick.

“We see a world where the data off these devices is only going to get more clinical grade: you either get there or fall behind,” says Pitstick. “I think we’ll see preferred or sanctioned devices by the medical community, and we’ll see them integrated into workflows and platforms. The data we collect is adding to the patient’s story, and there’s a huge power in predictive, preventative medicine.”

“Longitudinal data has some real potential,” says Godfrey. “Predictive modeling: what does long-term heart rate variability tell us? We can build models off of that.”

This opportunity to make care more personalized has great potential, Pitstick and Godfrey explain.

“We can get more insights akin to me versus someone else, and model data better to certain demographics and get to something that is more guided to you as an individual patient,” says Pitstick.

“It’s a really exciting time to see where this tech is heading,” says Godfrey.

Matt Phillion is a freelance writer covering healthcare, cybersecurity, and more. He can be reached at matthew.phillion@gmail.com.