The Revolutionizing of Healthcare PR: Wearables

Everyone has heard of the new fad: wearables. This wave of marketable healthcare devices is poised to change not only the way we live our day-to-day lives, but also how we interact with our healthcare public relations professionals. So what are wearables, and why are they so important to our future?

The Quell

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2015), the NeuroMetrix Quell was showcased. This astonishing device is an alternative to addictive pain killers, able to use non-invasive neurostimulation technology to give patients of debilitating diseases significant pain relief.

Thync’s Emotiv Headset

This device allows us to switch from one mood to the next as easily as switching a light on and off. How? It uses neurotransmitters to target specific portions of the brain associated with specific moods, effectively switching you from one to the next with a single zap.

Apple Watch

Smart devices like the Apple Watch are able to keep track of various vitals such as heart rate, calories burned, etc. More interesting is the device’s companion application for the iPhone which will allow individuals to send this information to third-party apps. How long before your doctors and other professionals have their own apps?

Smart Contact Lens

Last year, Google partnered with Novartis to deliver new technology that fits inside of a single contact lens and is able to detect a diabetic patient’s glucose levels. Devices like this are way ahead of the curve, and we’re likely to see a lot more of these in the next few years.

Five Years From Now

In the future, it’s widely accepted that optional wearables will be incrementally phased out. No more watches, glasses, clunky head-bands, etc. Instead, the rapidly decreasing prices of microships will allow us to put them inside of clothing–something we wear every day no matter what. Until we do this, people won’t truly accept wearable technology. Right now, people only use their wearables on average less than a full year, which won’t have a strong enough impact on our healthcare system.

This wave of innovative new devices will revolutionize the way we approach healthcare; in particular we’ll be willing and able to share more personal information with our doctors and other healthcare public relations professionals, which will lead to happier, healthier, longer lives. We can envision a future in which our devices autonomously update these healthcare providers. One day soon, it might be that our doctors call us for an appointment instead of the other way around!