3 Medical Device Trends to Know

The impact of the Internet of Things and digital health disruption--those are but some of the things Qmed senior editor Chris Newmarker discussed in a recent online interview.

Qmed Staff

Qmed senior editor Chris Newmarker spoke of everything from reporting to compliance to the Affordable Care Act to employee self-service usage during a recently freewheeling online interview on the TechnologyAdvice Expert Interview Series.

The series, hosted by TechnologyAdvice's Josh Bland, explores business and technology landscapes through discussions with industry leaders.

Here are a few takeaways from the conversation:

The Internet of Things' Impact on Healthcare

"That is one thing that a lot of people are really talking about, that we're going to be heading into this world where everything has a sensor that's providing information that we could mine for analytics and use. That's pretty exciting. If you think about it, a medical device company - you have all these devices that are interacting with people's bodies. You have devices that are implanted inside of people. Couldn't there be all this useful information that could be mined to potentially improve people's health?"

Digital Healthcare Disruption

"One of the biggest things that we're noticing at Qmed is that any story about Apple or Google just does extremely well, and it's because these high-tech players are getting really serious about medical devices in the health sector. You hear about Google doing just this whole array of things in the medical device field, including contact lenses that could sense glucose potentially. People in the established device companies are looking over there and saying, 'What is this going to do to the company I work at? Are these big, high-tech companies going to disrupt our industry?' It's a really interesting moment. It makes things very exciting that you have these companies that are interested in medical technology."

Changing the Financial Dynamic

"The intersection of insurance and wearable technology is also really interesting. A lot of insurance companies are helping set up workers with incentives to be healthier. That includes wearable devices. That is kind of happening. The one problem with that financial dynamic is that you need a larger employer with a health plan. You're saying, "'You should pay your workers to wear wearables because that's going to make them healthier in 20 years. You're going to save money over 20 years with health insurance.'

"The problem with that is a lot of workers aren't going to be around the company in 20 years, so how do you really make that work for them? One thing I heard is that, an argument can also be made that this isn't just a health issue, but this is also a productivity issue. If we're making sure that our workers are more physically active, eating better, not smoking, they are going to feel better, they're going to call in sick less, and they're going to be more productive at their job. If you could make that cost-benefit argument then maybe we will see people getting lower health insurance rates for wearables."

The podcast was created and published by TechnologyAdvice, an Inc. 5000 company looking to help buyers find medical software, EHR systems, and more. Interview conducted by Josh Bland.