Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Junior wants all Americans using wearable health devices. While this is part of his effort to Make America Healthy Again, there could be potential drawbacks.
Kennedy said during a hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health that wearables motivate people to adopt healthier lifestyles.
“My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years,” he said.
Wearables can be seen on wrists in the form of fitness trackers and smartwatches. People use them to measure movement, heart rate, help detect sleep apnea, and more. Kennedy touts glucose monitors in particular, which measure blood sugar.
“I’ve personally had friends who’ve utterly changed their lives just from wearing a glucose meter,” he said. “They’ve lost weight, they’ve lost their diabetes diagnoses, and you see this happen again and again.”
Doctors often recommend wearables to their patients. Ian Smith, M.D. told CBN News about the benefits of wearable ECGs, which monitor cardiac activity.
“There have been people whose lives have been saved because their wearable devices were able to detect over the course of 24 hours an abnormal heart rhythm that then brought them to their health care provider who took a deeper look and found out that yes, there is an anomaly, a problem going on right now with the heart,” he said.
Tech companies continue to expand options, such as wearables designed to prevent sudden infant death syndrome or wearables to improve posture.
Yet alongside the praise, privacy concerns exist. Mark Goddard, vice president of clinical services at InfoBionic.Ai, a virtual telemetry company specializing in remote cardiac arrhythmia monitoring, told CBN News that questions surrounding data sharing exist.
“The citizens that are wearing these health devices don’t necessarily know what information is being shared and whom it’s being shared with,” he said.
For example, health companies could potentially sell data of certain patients leading insurance companies to potentially raise their rates. That’s why consumers should choose carefully.
“I think transparency from the company that is managing that data is a critical point for the patient to feel comfortable and understand what is actually happening with it,” Goddard said.
Another issue involves accessibility. Kennedy says his agency is working on ways to make glucose monitors more available.
“It’s 80 bucks a month and we’re exploring ways of making sure that those costs can be paid for,” he said.
So while studies show wearables can improve health metrics and even save lives, issues such as data sharing and affordability persist.
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