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How Noninvasive Diagnostics Can Change Health Management

How Noninvasive Diagnostics Can Change Health Management

Ron Erickson is the founder and chairman of Know Labs, a company working to deliver the first FDA-cleared noninvasive glucose monitor.

If you, a family member or close friend has undergone treatments for a serious medical condition or chronic disease, you can probably relate to the seemingly endless doctor visits, battery of tests and ongoing monitoring. It can be a trying and stressful journey.

But what if your or your loved one’s treatment or healthcare experience could be different by continuously monitoring what’s going on inside our bodies with a simple, noninvasive sensor instead of multiple doctor office visits, invasive blood draws, diagnostic procedures or costly scans? Or, to be even more aspirational, how would treatment change if ongoing, noninvasive diagnostic monitoring of molecules in our bodies could predict a disease or indicate an elevated risk for certain medical conditions? With your doctor, could you or your loved one make any preventative healthcare decisions or changes with proactive access to real-time data?

That’s the potential future power of technology innovations that may change the landscape of the healthcare system and how we manage our health and wellness. Noninvasive medical diagnostics should soon become a reality, with digital biometric data that shows what’s happening in someone’s body at any given moment to help patients and our doctors make better health-related decisions. In fact, biometric technology is already being applied by several companies like WHOOP and Oura with wearable smart devices that aggregate and analyze vital sign data to help track and optimize sleep, recovery and well-being.

Three Benefits For Patients And Their Overall Health

This emerging technology has the potential to significantly impact how healthcare is delivered, from patients to providers to payors. Perhaps the greatest benefits of noninvasive medical diagnostics rest with us—the patient—in managing our own health. Consider these three patient-centric benefits.

• Empowerment. Noninvasive medical diagnostics provide quality information that can democratize healthcare by empowering patients to make healthcare decisions and/or behavior shifts. Painless sensors that capture data might be found in wearable wristband-like devices—FDA-cleared medical devices for patients monitoring a disease or something like a fitness watch for those who simply want to manage their overall health. These devices could detect and convert the unique molecular radio frequencies in our body into exact biometrics. Think of it as an early warning system, allowing a healthy individual to be empowered to make changes to avoid moving into a disease state. People with existing conditions can also manage those conditions better.

• Affordability. Since patients will know what’s going on in their bodies and have baseline measures, regular noninvasive medical technology and data may eliminate the need for costly diagnostic tests or scans, or even going to the doctor’s office for preventative poking and prodding that often come with screenings. This could save patients money—not to mention time and stress—while ensuring quality care.

• Accessibility. By using noninvasive medical technology, patients can effectively engage in remote healthcare or telemedicine, which remains important post-pandemic and helps equalize healthcare. With noninvasive diagnostic devices, patients should also have better access to information about their health to intervene earlier and take action.

Possible Barriers To Realizing The Technology’s Full Potential

Along with the benefits that come with a different way of approaching and managing our health, any new technology also faces potential barriers to adoption. For example, consider these two potential obstacles for patients.

• Taking personal responsibility and accountability. It’s one thing to have a constant stream of quality health data. It’s another thing to make the necessary behavior or lifestyle modifications based on that information and guidance from a medical professional. This requires that patients truly take responsibility for their own health. They have to be able to understand the information and have the capacity to exercise their will and take action.

• Ability to embrace and trust modern health and wellness tools. A recent study from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society found more than half of U.S. consumers (download required) are willing to use health-related technologies like fitness or smartwatches, but they’re more hesitant to use digital tools for health monitoring and medication management. This is a hesitancy to overcome, as patients may always be at different stages on the path to digital transformation. There may be other adoption inhibitors like patient hesitancy or privacy concerns in allowing health data access to providers or payors.

Conclusion

Noninvasive medical diagnostics can empower patients in managing their health with access to high-quality, affordable information that lets them make better judgments and take responsibility for what they do and how they’re doing. It has the potential to be a life-changing boon for human health and well-being, which is why the technology industry, doctors and patients should monitor the developments in noninvasive diagnostics and work together to overcome the hurdles preventing its adoption.


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