This week kicks off Health 2.0’s 8th Annual Fall Conference. We are looking forward to covering the event and seeing what’s in store for this coming year. Some big sectors to watch, as Health 2.0 concisely puts together in the chart below, focuses on connecting patient empowerment tools and provider technologies. We’ll see you at Health 2.0!
The scope of over-sharing has changed (widened) in-line with the spread of technology. According to eMarketer, “Nearly 35 million people in the US accessed Instagram at least once per month in 2013.” Riding the trend of selfies and humble-bragging, PumpUp has created a workout community that takes the over-sharing culture and refocuses it on something worthwhile – health and fitness.
With over 1.7 million users, the app that started as a workout program has grown into a digital sharing community. Consisting mainly of women (over 90% of users), healthy recipes, tips, and envy inducing photos are posted and shared, with some getting hundreds, nearly thousands of ‘likes.’ Not to be undermined, the workout portion of the app is surprisingly robust and users can build and store their own custom exercise plans. It’s worth checking out – even for just a bit of inspiration.
These past two years, sensors have moved from measuring miles walked and steps taken to collecting data on muscle activity – including force, power, and velocity. These metrics can triangulate just how efficiently you are working out at the gym. Some of these sensors are wrist wearable, like PUSH and LEO, some are built into smart fabrics like Athos, and some are additions to mobile devices like the Skulpt Aim.
Beast Technologies has developed a device that aims to calculate your speed, power and strength via a small magnetic sensor that can be easily attached to gym equipment. Although it can be worn on a chest strap or wrist strap, the sensor primarily affixes to dumbbells, kettlebells, gym machines and the like. All collected data is transmitted to an online portal and companion app.
Beast boasts a wide range of trackable parameters including jump height, stability, explosiveness, posture, and resistance. The device is currently being beta tested (the Italian National Soccer Team used Beast to monitor their athletes leading up the 2014 World Cup), and aims to be released to the public by the end of this year.
Within several days, GestureLogic reached its Indiegogo funding goal on their first device, LEO. LEO isn’t just another wearable device that counts your steps or tracks motions. LEO measures biosignals (such as muscle activity and lactic acid levels) to calculate exertion – giving users recommendations on how to workout more efficiently and telling athletes when they are pushing too hard. Knowing when to stop or tone down the intensity helps avoid potential injuries. LEO’s feedback loop makes it an invaluable fitness tool. As the wearer changes intensity and speed, so does the real-time feedback from LEO – urging the user to push harder or continue to taper. LEO tracks your physical starting point, noting each specific user’s unique physiology, and sets goals based on these metrics. While it may be obvious that two different bodies with two different weights and peak heart rates should have two different workout plans even if the end goal (say losing 10 lbs) is the same – not many wearables are able to tailor workout routines like LEO can.
LEO’s key capabilities include:
Kurbo is a mobile app targeted towards kids and teens to help them learn about and maintain healthy eating and exercising habits. The app teaches kids about nutrition, labeling foods as green (good to eat anytime), yellow (eat in moderation), and red (eat sparingly).
Games on the app teach users about serving size and portions, and about exercise intensities. The program comes with a weekly coaching session to help provide additional support. Users set their goals and use Kurbo to help structure and plan for the week ahead.
If a user is allotted 35 reds a week and is attending a birthday party on Saturday, he can plan ahead by eating less “red” foods during the week so that he can fit in eating cake on Saturday (cake is definitely a red food). Kurbo doesn’t impose set diets on children, instead it gives them the ability to portion their calories and make small changes for themselves. Initially licensed from Stanford University and stress tested by SUNY Buffalo research, Kurbo aims to be a wellness and lifestyle app for children and teens, and lets them make decisions versus imposing rules. With this approach, 80% of Kurbo users lose weight. You can download Kurbo now for iOS devices.
FreeWavz, wireless smart earphones with immersive sound quality and medical-grade fitness monitoring precision has launched their Kickstarter campaign today.
FreeWavz combines the uniqueness of distraction free, stable (here’s a video of a gymnast with them on) wireless earphones with an expansive suite of health metrics tracking – including heart rate, calories burned, distance traveled, duration of workout, and oxygen saturation. The technology and design aim to give the most accurate readings. Other earbud-type wireless earphones are unable to match the accuracy of FreeWavzs because they only have a front sensor. By wrapping around the ear, FreeWavz pulse oximeters can sense the amount of red and infra-red light traveling through the earlobe, and then collect the feedback with a second behind-the-ear sensor, giving more precise oxygen and heart rate readings.
FreeWavz founder, Dr. Eric Hensen, is an ear, nose, and throat surgeon. Having worked with hard-of-hearing patients, Dr. Hensen brought his practical experience into creating FreeWavz, stating “This product was born out of customer feedback – from people in the gym, to those who bike and run, to patients complaining about traditional headphones – this product was made by combining user feedback and experience together.”
Also unlike earbuds, which block the ear canal (and are often jammed into the ear, causing discomfort while distorting the sound), FreeWavz projects sound into the ear canal, letting the canal “breath,” and in turn delivering crisper sound.
The two earpiece devices connect to a mobile app via Bluetooth, and each earpiece can be individually calibrated for frequency and volume. Additionally, users can use FreeWavz to answer phone calls and the earphones can be adjusted for environmental listen-through to accommodate busy street noise.
President & Chief Financial Officer Harry Ericson calls FreeWavz, “Google Glass for the ears,” because of the product’s expansive usability and reach. While it is now launched as a fitness wearable, potential future applications include use while driving (transmitting GPS directions), traveling (guided tour audio), or learning (classroom/education).
Go to Kickstarter to reserve your pair today; shipments planned beginning this October.
I attended the UCSF School of Nursing Commencement last night and was reminded of how selfless and hardworking nurses are. Congratulations to all grads – and special thanks to the ones focused on health and wellness.
Healthcare is a demanding industry to be in, especially as a service provider. There are more and more apps that have become available in recent years to aid doctors and nurses, with a few comprehensive lists located here:
25 Best Nursing Apps (Rasmussen)
Top Nursing Apps (Soliant Health)
104 Apps Every Nurse Should Be Using (OnlineLPNtoRN.org)
Alexisavvy continues to be focused on consumer apps and products, but we acknowledge the wealth of provider apps out there. Better support for practitioners means better and more accurate quality of care for all.
Dr. Andrew Lin and Dr. Hon Weng Chong, founders of StethoCloud, have designed and built an inexpensive smartphone stethoscope that can be used by parents and doctors alike. The device is easy enough for a parent to use at home and cheap enough so that a doctor can use it in the developing world to diagnose diseases like pneumonia. The Company started from a winning entry into the 2012 Microsoft Australian Imagine Cup – a student technology competition. StethoCloud has come a long way since their first prototype and Andrew has answers to some of our questions below.
A: How did you decide to create a modern stethoscope?
AL: As doctors, Hon and I have always believed that in the future, an explosion of data will help medical professionals make better informed decisions, with far more leverage on their time than today. For this to happen, we realized that we needed prolific sensors that can collect the data required. We decided on the stethoscope because the data is extremely rich, containing powerful diagnostic information, which can diagnose a broad range of respiratory and heart conditions. Initially, we entered Microsoft’s Imagine Cup competition as a student project, where we focused on pneumonia.
A: What is the vision and mission of StethoCloud?
AL: Connected diagnostic devices for consumers, and a software platform to help drive in-home healthcare delivery.
A: Who is your target audience for the product?
AL: Initially, we plan to market our product to parents of young children. This is because respiratory illnesses are extremely common (e.g. croup, bronchiolitis, asthma) and a connected stethoscope will become a valuable tool that can help parents get advice remotely, especially on transient events such as asthma attacks. Beyond this, the tool is also useful for those with chronic illnesses or under care.
A: What are the main differentiators of StethoCloud versus what is currently available in the market that makes it such an industry game changer?
AL: We have designed the device for consumers and the interface is easy to use. It will be much cheaper than existing devices. In the future, we plan to roll out algorithms that provide analytics and help with decision support.
A: How will StethoCloud work with other applications to paint the picture of health for an individual?
AL: It’s early days, but we plan to develop APIs to allow cross-platform integration.
GLAZEDcon is on at full force. This year’s conference has attracted nearly three times as many people as last year, and features speakers from all realms of the wearables world – from healthcare wearables to responsive bike helmets to programable rings that can be used to control your bluetooth devices. The vast increase in magnitude of the conference reflects the growing interest and demand of wearables to track, manage, and quantify all aspects of life.
Rise is a new nutrition coaching app that makes it affordable to have structured, personal, and specialized nutrition coaching. Your personal diet coach gives you daily feedback and advice based on what you eat and what types of habits you keep. The feedback is tailored to each individual’s changing lifestyle.
The app makes interacting with a personal nutritionist easy. By taking photos of every snack and meal, you are giving your nutritionist a reliable way to shape your diet in real time. The app itself is well designed, although taking pictures of every meal takes a little getting used to. My coach was friendly and experienced. The personal attention I got made me more cognizant of what I was eating and when. After spending several days in Las Vegas and eating haphazardly, her appraisals of my meals made me focus on eating fruits and vegetables upon arriving back at home. The coaching works – and the native interface doubles as a food diary. It’s definitely an app to try on the way to modifying eating habits for the better.
alexisavvy | healthcare it & consumer health blog 