An ECG (electrocardiogram) is a simple test that can be used to check a heart’s rhythm and electrical activity, designed to detect any underlying issues. The Apple Watch 4 will be the first mainstream wearable gadget, available on the commercial market, to integrate this kind of medical diagnostic technology. My substantive research focus is digital health, and I acknowledge that accuracy of this kind of ECG test might be unreliable. I also caution about ‘false positives’ that may lead healthy people to seek medical attention from increasingly burdened services when it is not required, meanwhile causing unnecessary anxiety and perhaps even harmful follow up investigations. However, I do welcome opportunities for technology to contribute to improving health services.
It would be naive to assume that everyone who is at risk of heart problems knows, never mind consults with a doctor, about it. Often, people don’t realise until it is too late and they need emergency treatment and lengthy retrospective investigation – or, at worse, they die. To ignore the current digital health movement, and surging enthusiasm for it among early adopters of devices, health enthusiasts and growing numbers of people more generally would also be foolish.
I am currently leading a number of projects looking at various digital health technologies and how they might be used to prevent, diagnose and manage adverse health outcomes, as well as improving lifestyles in general. I am a keen and active user of various health technologies, which I test for research, teaching and life purposes, and I write an autoethnographic blog detailing and reflecting on my experiences. As an enthusiast and early adopter, I’m excited about the opportunities and possibilities for tech in health and social care, but am aware of the many challenges society faces before the potential of digital health can be realised. Some of the barriers are technical, some are about integration, communication and trust. Financial pressures are also persistent. But I don’t believe that we can bury our heads in the sand and ignore the digital wave of change coming our way. In particular, I think that opportunities to try technologies, adequately supported by services, need to be explored and digital literacy needs to be addressed. At present, many of the newest health technologies are ‘opt in if you can afford it’ and being used by the ‘worried well’. What we should really be thinking about is how we can widen appropriate access for this kind of technology to those who it would most benefit, so that it might identify more people at risk, earlier. This would help make health services more efficient, reduce waste and perhaps even save lives.” Read my recent article here.
