As wearables shrink, will their role in clinical care grow?

Key takeaways

Wearables are shrinking into rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets that consumers can put on and forget, which Forrester’s Arielle Trzcinski says matters because passive, long-term data collection is what makes trend analysis useful. Smaller devices are also gaining clinical credibility, with Happy Health’s smart ring cleared by the FDA for cuffless blood pressure measurement and at-home sleep apnea diagnosis, both with population health potential. The gap remains on the provider side, where 75 percent of physicians call wearable data valuable but only 28 percent routinely act on it, and Trzcinski warns that health systems that don’t engage with consumer-led, data-backed conversations will keep getting disintermediated.

The days of the clunky wearable appear to be over. Though 93 percent of adults who own at least one wearable have a smartwatch, according to the latest Rock Health wearable adoption survey, smart rings are gaining momentum among younger Americans.

Form factors are shrinking even more, too. Necklaces that track sun exposure and earrings that measure blood flow (among other metrics) hit the market this year, and a bracelet that monitors health and lets wearers call for help should ship early next year.

“Given the diversification of the wearables market, it’s much easier to find something that’s a function fit for each individual, so they can collect the data that they care about most,” said Arielle Trzcinski, principal analyst for healthcare at Forrester. “After all, the best wearable is the wearable you actually wear.”

Devices you can put on and forget about

That point is important, since not every metric matters to everyone. Someone interested in sleep and overall wellness is well served by a smart ring, Trzcinski noted, as those devices watch for changes in biomarker data. Those interested in fitness and endurance gravitate to watches or bands designed to monitor for strain and project recovery.

“At the end of the day, we want people to be able to look at how data is changing over time,” she said. “That will work well for most of the population.”

That’s where the smaller form factor enters the picture. “A watch or band with limited battery life that needs to be taken off, charged and put back on requires additional steps that can be a barrier to long-term use for some consumers,” Trzcinski said. “If you can put it on and forget about it while it’s passively collecting data, that allows you to look at your data in a meaningful way.”

Potential population health impacts

At the same time, smaller wearables are getting more sophisticated. Smart ring maker Happy Health, for example, received FDA clearance for cuffless blood pressure measurement. That’s on top of a recent FDA clearance for at-home sleep apnea diagnosis.

Trzcinski said these use cases have clear population health management potential. Early detection of sleep apnea cuts down on the need for sleep studies, which can have wait times of several weeks and disrupt consumers’ schedules.

Meanwhile, with an estimated 40 percent of the U.S. population diagnosed with hypertension, Trzcinski noted continuous blood pressure monitoring can give clinical teams “a sense of what life is like outside the exam room.” That can spark a conversation about diet or lifestyle changes instead of first turning to medication. It also helps care teams see if high in-office blood pressure readings are indeed accurate or stem from white coat hypertension.

Real insights, not information overload

While wearables are getting smaller, their data streams are not. More than 75 percent of physicians say this data is valuable to clinical practices, according to a recent AMA survey on wearable data. That said, only 28 percent routinely act on this data, and only 18 percent are likely to integrate wearable data into clinical workflows over the next year.

“If there are ways to detect patterns, identify risk factors and talk about them at the next appointment, then organizations need to stand up patient portal integrations,” Trzcinski said.

Vendors also need to walk a fine line between providing meaningful insights and creating an overabundance of information. For example, proprietary scores for factors such as sleep and fitness may be helpful signals, but they’re nearly impossible to compare from one platform to another, Trzcinski noted.

“It will be important for AI agents and consumers to be able to work together and decide what needs to get escalated, based on what the data’s telling them,” she said. “That will give the consumer the confidence to be empowered to talk about it, and also make the clinician confident that the data is accurate.”

Can care teams lean into the conversation?

If physicians and health systems cannot lean into a consumer-led conversation about health that’s backed by wearable data, then they’ll continue to be disintermediated, Trzcinski said. That means consumers will take steps such as talking to third-party telehealth providers or scheduling appointments through ChatGPT.

Of course, making that work will likely require large-scale change, including reimbursing physicians not just for looking at data but also for interpreting it. There are clear ties to value-based care, Trzcinski said.

“Reimbursement needs to shift over time as physicians are able to say, ‘I’m helping keep this person healthier longer,’” she said.

Brian Eastwood is a Boston-based writer with more than 10 years of experience covering healthcare IT and healthcare delivery. He also writes about enterprise IT, consumer technology, and corporate leadership.