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Thousands of heart
attacks and strokes could be prevented each year if the health data of
wearable tech such as sports watches was harnessed by the NHS, says leading
clinician Ashley Davids. In a recent interview with the CX Insider
podcast team, Davids, who has a long career in both public and private
healthcare, says that:
“It’s already too
late when the heart attack or stroke has occurred,” says Davids. “Not only
is this life threatening to the patient but it costs the NHS billions in
treating the aftermath, with weeks in hospital and months of recovery. But
the signs of an oncoming attack – such as heightened stress levels – can
often be identified by the smart wearable tech that we are increasingly
wearing.
“Prevention is
always better than cure, so imagine a time when your smart watch identifies
a serious issue, alerts the NHS systems and directs you to go to a hospital
for immediate care. No GP referrals, no drawn-out processes – just real
time health care. The potential for preventing heart attacks and strokes –
and the burden on the healthcare system – would be enormous.”
Freeing up beds
With the NHS
struggling to get back on track after the pandemic and waiting lists for
care longer than ever, connecting our everyday wearable tech to the NHS’ IT
systems offers the potential to reduce a major burden on the UK’s healthcare
system. It could free up thousands of bed days by treating the symptoms
before they become chronic.
There is a precedent
for securely managing patient data on a vast scale. UK firm ACF
Technologies was the creator and provider of the patient scheduling system
for Covid-19 testing and the booking system for all vaccines and boosters
during the pandemic. At the time of writing its system has so far managed
56 million appointments over 26 million patients – all without any error or
misuse of the data. ACF’s technology and its experience of bringing
together masses of medical data in a seamless central tech platform shows
that it can be done, efficiently and securely.
“Data has the
potential to be the fourth emergency service, recording more in a day about
the users’ health than an annual check-up ever could,” says Davids. “When
allied with artificial intelligence it could constantly update and get
cleverer at predicting when health emergencies will occur. If these could
be allied to the NHS’s own systems it would identify which patients to see
first, streamlining the process, preempting emergencies and saving lives.
Can you afford not
to share data?
Wearable tech offers
a lifeline for both users and the NHS. Thousands of people are walking
around every day with medical data that the NHS could use to predict when
they are going to be seriously unwell. The question is: are people willing
to share it with the NHS? If they were given access then at some predefined
level of symptoms gathered on the wearable device, a ‘ping’ could be sent
by the NHS telling the user/patient to attend an appointment with a
relevant specialist/A&E - not wholly unlike the Track & Trace
system used during the pandemic.
While useful in
theory, incorporating wearable tech into the health ecosystem faces a
number of technical and administrative hurdles. A primary challenge would
be to gather the data, verify it and approve it. Only approved devices
would be allowed to submit data to the NHS, as rogue data would corrupt
diagnosis, with possibly dire consequences.
“If properly
harnessed by AI and a robust patient scheduling system, the potential for
improving wellbeing and reducing the burden on the NHS is enormous,”
concludes Davids. “If a person’s wearable tech registered a condition that
needed medical intervention the NHS could swing into action in curing it
before the patient themself even realized they had a problem. And who
wouldn’t want to be wearing something they knew was looking out for them?”
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