• by Nilay Dhamsania , July 9, 2014

ABI Research has projected wearable wireless medical device sales to surpass 100 million devices (annually) by 2016, while it is predicted that wearable devices could be a $50 billion market by 2017.

Wearable apps and healthcare constitute a formidable combination -- from weight-tracking apps to apps for tracking height, body fat, waist, blood pressure, pulse, sleep, cholesterol and glucose. Wearable apps for health and fitness can organize all your lifestyle and activity data into personal projects, like weight loss and distance running training.

They also allow physicians to easily access more information about a new drug or the patient's medical history, take photos or record video footage of a surgery or consultation.

But are wearable apps able to catch up with the fierce competition fueling the industry?

Wearable Apps in Surgery

Surgery -- one of the most complex and sensitive part of the healthcare sector can be one of the biggest beneficiary from wearable apps. Not only does wearable devices like Google Glass make hands-free technology a reality, doctors can now access vital information during the course of a surgical operation through a simple voice command. Wearable devices also allow for virtual surgery that can guide an individual through a process, step-by-step and further empowered with mission-critical wearable apps.

Wearable Apps for Paramedics

Wearable apps for Google Glass or smartwatches can help paramedics communicate with doctors, while attending to critical patients as in accident sites, or for those like nurses and care providers administering care for in-home patients to coordinate with qualified healthcare professionals.

Wearable Apps for Clinical Documentation

Amid the raging debate on ways to document clinical proceedings like using macros, templates, voice recognition, and clinical documentation improvement tools; there always remains a possibility of documentations misaligning with the ways that patients communicate and doctors conceptualize medical information -- leading to dangerous medical inferences. Wearable apps for devices like Google Glass can be used to capture patient consultations, and the audio/visual cue that the clinician sees and listens can be recorded.

Wearable apps for Emergency Services Dashboards

Physicians executing emergency services work in a high stress, fast-paced environment and must be able to quickly access information, filter relevant information and make evidence-based decisions, considering the critical nature of the healthcare business. Doctors through wearables like Google Glass can see every required information regarding the patient from vital stats to triage details, and nursing documentation, and even access lab and radiology results.

Wearable apps that enables Alerts and Reminders for Healthcare Providers

Wearable apps for devices like smartwatches and Glassware can play a crucial role in simplifying a clinician’s role by sending them timely alerts and reminders, based on their previous actions and managing communications from email, phone calls, patients on their schedule, and those requiring immediate treatment.

Wearable apps for Automated Personal Healthcare

Patients with chronic health problems, like heart ailments, diabetes, hypertension, etc. need to take their daily dose of medicines. Wearable apps can play a vital role here by helping remind patients to take pills, exercise, take a walk and even check their vital stats. Similarly, wearable apps for Fitness besides keeping track of your calories and activities during the day, offers diet plans and sends timely reminder so that you never miss taking care of your personal health.

Wearable Apps for Electronic Health Records (EHR)

Wearable apps for organizing EHRs (electronic health records) helps healthcare providers access patient records on the go using wearable devices; besides facilitating the scanning of QR codes on room doors, drugs, and medical devices so as to straightaway synchronize the information with the correct patient record.

Also, wearable apps for EHRs will help doctors save time in sorting out data in order to have organic interactions with patients. It also allows doctors to create clinical notes on the go (using voice recognition technology), while attending patients.

Despite the benefits, developers find the wearable apps ecosystem far too fragmented, which means that they have to deal with diverse SDKs or APIs for every wearable device they consider building an app for. However, the onus on wearable app developers is to make the wearable apps more appealing and consumer-friendly (by trying out different approaches like social media integration, gaming, and data visualization).

Wearable app development is the future of mobile technology and being a first-mover in the industry can be a winning idea, and help you immensely in creating a formidable presence in the emerging market.

 Are you ready?