1 week Ago
Achin Bhowmik, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Engineering at Starkey and adjunct professor at Stanford.
Many of us have some sort of a fitness, health or activity tracker today. Each new product, or new version of these types of devices, offers increasingly more advanced features to track a person’s health metrics. These innovative technologies are paving the path to promising solutions that can help with preventive healthcare.
Monitoring heart rate, blood oxygen level, physical activities and fall detection are just a few examples of what today’s wearable health devices can do, and with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the possibilities are endless for how these technologies can assist in preventive healthcare. As an example, while fall detection technologies have been around for years, now AI algorithms in devices with embedded inertial sensors are even helping people who are at risk of falling assess their risk level to help prevent falls before they occur. The proliferation of this technology will help prevent injuries and deaths and offset some of the financial burden of medical costs associated with those incidents.
The advancement of AI and integration into everyday devices can empower individuals to take control of their health by enhancing accessibility to critical health assessments. There is no doubt that patients benefit from enhanced awareness of their potential health risks and the convenience of having these assessments integrated into a device they already use. For the healthcare system, AI-enhanced wearable devices offer the promise of reducing overall healthcare costs by focusing on prevention.
They also provide valuable data for clinicians, facilitating personalized care plans and improving outcomes. These devices exemplify the potential for technology to address complex health challenges in ways that are both scalable and user-friendly. By positioning wearable devices as multifunctional health monitors, we can reimagine their role in healthcare.
They become tools for managing wellness, preventing negative health outcomes and enabling a more proactive approach to aging. This reimagining aligns with broader trends in personalized medicine and patient-centered care. We are already seeing this come to life in the form of advanced hearing aids with embedded sensors and AI.
A new study highlights the use of sensor and AI-equipped hearing aids in preventing falls in seniors. Falls are a huge preventable challenge in our country, with 1 in 4 seniors experiencing a fall each year. Falls are more common in those with hearing loss because of the reduction of spatial awareness and the brain’s limited ability to integrate sensory input.
The results are thousands of fatalities, millions of doctor visits and billions of dollars in medical costs. This collaboration between industry and academia is enabling new use models for wearable devices in AI, and this study also demonstrates how AI-powered hearing aids can be a tool for clinically relevant data for fall risk assessments. This opens the door for remote health monitoring and could eliminate the need for specialized equipment or in-person evaluations.
Virtual care can be used to assess fall risk assessments, especially in low-resource or rural areas. While many use wearable devices today, they have not been fully adopted by all, with a recent study citing only 1 in 3 Americans using one. While we know there is a historical stigma around wearing hearing aids, modern designs and increased functionalities can potentially increase their adoption.
Awareness, access and affordability continue to be among the limiting factors that must be addressed. There is also a lot more we need to learn about AI as the technology continues to advance each day. We need to continue to recognize the risks of AI: What could go wrong and how it could be used negatively, and combatting those things to ensure privacy and security is a constant battle.
However, I believe that the positives outweigh the negatives and using this technology will help to advance healthcare in an impactful way. Finding ways to simplify user interfaces to improve accessibility, refine algorithms and explore broader applications of this technology are the next steps. The scope of AI-enhanced hearing aids to monitor other health metrics, such as cognitive decline or cardiovascular health, could further elevate their role in comprehensive healthcare management.
These new developments open the door to a future of proactive and anticipatory healthcare solutions, leading to safer and healthier lives. This is just the beginning of a move toward smarter and more integrated health solutions. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives.
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