Wearable Technology: Risks And Potentials In Healthcare

Answer :

Introduction:

With the advancement of time, technology has enabled us to create computers of smaller sizes than before; Assimilation of this wearable technology has enabled us to create wearable devices for betterment of the quality of human life. The quantity of connected wearable technology is anticipated to hit the breakthrough of a billion devices around the year 2022 worldwide. Gupta and Jilla (2011) stated as healthcare is increasingly being subjected to technology, it behaves as the best system to utilise the wearable coup for the betterment of the quality of living and human health. This line of arguments primary focus was to provide extensive definition to wearable technologies as well as its risks and potentials in healthcare applications. The primary focus of previous researches for this subject was generally about its specific aspects (privacy issues, particular technologies). Therefore, the objective of this report is to describe why wearable technologies play an important role improving interest towards this permissible piece of technology.

Background research:

The objective of this research is to perform a literature review regarding healthcare of wearable technologies, and to appraise the problems and outcomes will face before becoming the next big thing in technology. The purpose of this essay is to increase the interest about wearable technology and to lay stress on the potential in healthcare developments it could bring (Fister et al., 2015). 

Research method and data acquisition:

The major key words to be used when performing this research are: healthcare, wearable technology, telemedicine, health-IT, wearable sensors, and smart technologies. The electronic libraries to be used are the JYKDOK, AIS Electronic Library (AISeL), Google Scholar and IEEE Xplore. The references which are used will be focused on adaptation of wearable technology in healthcare and its primary possibilities/difficulties; the research with the most references will receive the most focus but Google Scholar will not be ignored completely because of its vast coverage (Espinosa et al., 2015).

Limitations of HCI technology:

While there exist many usefulness based around wearable technology, it has some cons too which cannot be ignored.

• May provide distraction: Wearable technology, just like smart phones can provide lots of distraction which can hamper with one’s concentration. For example, a smart watch comes with lots of features and applications and also serves as a piece of kit. Therefore, there are lots of potential to play with it. Also their small size means that they can be slipped into anywhere, even classrooms and offices. So careful out there (Chardonnens et al., 2012)
• They’re expensive: There are plenty of cheap fitness trackers which are available on the market these days but the products which offer reliable and genuine results are usually expensive. It is of common knowledge that as technology improves, price of these products drop and become essential commodities for all.
• All wearable are not standalone: Many wearable technologies require a large platform in order to function properly. If that’s the case then you might have to carry some new system to accompany the original one. That’s more exhausting and troublesome.
• Battery limitations and size are of major concern: Despite massive advancement towards wearable, they are still pegged back and are governed by limitations of technical behaviour. Most prominent of these are their sizes and their limited battery capacity which means that they can be both unreliable and difficult to use (Seshadri et al., 2017).
• Privacy concerns: We live in a generation where having privacy and data security is of utmost importance and if you present a new technology into the business which has the potential to menace to invade either of the two; it is bound to have dreadful consequences from the perspective of a HR.

Emerging wearable technology:

With the revolution of wearable technology, the ability to learn more about oneself is not only limited to becoming high quality and that can be done in the certain time. The system and applications range from tracking of heart rate and details of consumption of food to gadgets that allow you to control the mood of an individual and even the air around you; the "quantified self" is needed for regular basis (Franke et al., 2011). The resultant product is that an individual could be able to learn regarding the health which is the invention of the self tracking devices. It has been measured that it would be successful, if the certain devices are used in this regard. One could be able to get the high configuration technology of the latest wearable 

Smart sport shoes: This wearable beauty was launched in 2017 and was made with the Under Armour and made with high technology so that the smart shoes can perform better. But UA is not alone in the race as Samsung is catching up with their spin-off advanced shoes that scrutinises the whole game. It has been found that the China company also starting to get involved.

• Project Soli: project Soli of Google is the smart app which becomes very popular for changing the way. It will interact with the player through the certain devices in an accurate way. It is made with big and high quality technology to recognize the proper interaction. It could be used through the devices host and smudgy touch screen (Hagema et al., 2013).
• Apple headset: Apple headset of the wearable sport trainer plays a vital role in this technological era. It is great when an individual is starting for sports; it will interact through its modern devices which are worn by the gamer.  It could be seen that the Apple consists modern headsets, smart TV, smart glasses and so forth (Rauter et al., 2015).
• Google’s Android wear duo: Google Android wear duo is the alternative of Samsung, Apple it has launched its smart watches which are manufactured by modern hardware and software technologies.  These watches have the system which is help to connect the GPS and support the LTE. The people are waiting for those watches which are better than the previous model.
• VR arcades: StarVR headsets are keeped by the IMAX and Starbreeze in the cinema foyers in the United Kingdom.  It was introduced in 2017 in LA. It comes with the crazy sounds with the VR theme. It has become successful in worldwide. Its co-founder is Noah Bushnell. It could be said that it will support you during your sporting time (Khan and Lawo, 2014).

Proposed Design:

There exist many possibilities to an endless amount of wearable technology. Today we’ll be focusing on the healthcare wearable tech. The healthcare wearables are divided mainly in two parts which is currently in the region: One is fitness wearable and second is medical wearable. The fitness wearable includes fitness trackers such as Fitbit and Samsung Gear, and they are appropriate for the young generation and healthy users. On the contrary, medical wearable is used by the aged and unhealthy people (Gao et al, 2015). Fitness wearable focuses on improving physical prowess instead of curing existing health concerns and therefore receives minuscule focus on this part.

For the elderly:

Most of the elderly people want to continue to dwell in their own dwellings with the assistance of geriatric home care service. This sets a high demand on the health care system. This is also one of the biggest potential for wearable technology in the future. The ability to use wearable technology to observe the health of the elderly people who are not staying in or who are not able to stay in the hospitals is where the biggest potential for improving healthcare in general lays. The elderly are being socially ruled out from the latest craze such as complex mobile applications as the focus of these new efforts are being targeted at younger adults and teenagers. Kandleret et al., (2015) analyzed that compared to the young generation it have the various characteristics, resulting in decreased openness and hesitation in willingness of adopting new technologies. This issue could be resolved by integrating smart wearable devices into their daily lives (Chua et al. 2015). It is a known fact that elder lies in general have difficulties in handling new technologies; technological advancements have been burgeoning during the 21th century and the senior citizens have troubles keeping up with the pace of the newest trends. This fact has been shown in studies such as the study by Czaja et al. (2012); figure 4 shows the general use of technology according to age group and gender. Technical self-efficacy is a term used to describe the faith that the people themselves is could not be able to use the high technology devices in question (James et. al., 2010). As wearable technology requires very little or none extra functional efforts, the efficiency of the elderly will be maximized, inspiring them to be culturally comprehensive by taking the wearable technology. Although the technology of the wearable appears like the accurate explanation to monitor the health of the elderly, there are still obstacles to face. As elderly have shown unwillingness of adopting new technologies and are generally more conservative than their younger counterparts, the privacy issue discussed in chapter 3.1.1 will definitely surface. Thus, it could be said that it is very essential for the practitioners to adopt the figure of the societal challenges which are created a secured technology for the people (Chua et al, 2016).

Future potential:

It has been found by the researchers that wearable technology is endless nowadays. It becomes the popular in the current region and the foreign. On the other hand, it could be said that the future potential of the wearable sport trainers is essential as the highly and advanced technology is used to manufacture the product to help the trainer. The Free scale chip named KL02 is also available, which is a consumed body-monitoring smart device that sends back bio-readings via Wi-Fi to monitor or diagnose diseases. These two combined would remove the human-error of not remembering to take medicine or using the wrong kind of medicine for a disease. The smart textiles discussed in chapter 2 also include possibilities for wearable technology in healthcare; the sensor of the wireless which can be interlaced into clothing can monitor patients’ vital signs without requiring intrusive instalment. Integrating these sensors into patient’s hospital apparel would make the monitoring of patients even more functional than it is now.

Benefits and Risks:

There are large numbers of the benefits available of the wearable sport trainer to actualize the fitness as well as the health. Here are some personalisations of exercise, only wearable tech can help with:

• It helps to motivate the responsibility of the individual and the monitoring
• It helps to establish the  attention whether the person is fit or not
• It also assist to manage the heart of the person and the training zone
• It establishes the environment by which an individual can compete with others through online.
• It helps to provide the daily routine about your health and the calories intake
• It helps to provide the fitness information which is related to the health of the personin the recreational athelete (Awasthi and Joshi, 2015)

It has been said that the information of the person’s health is regularly collected by the healthcare and wearable technology has enabled us to create wearable devices for betterment of the quality of human life (Bansal, Zahedi and Gefen, 2010). Thus the healthcare wearable must be  regarded as a high privacy concern product. Various previous researches have concluded that privacy of health information is of focal concern for individuals.

Conclusion:

In this report, the major ideas of wearable technology in common were considered and the possibilities and the difficulties for its healthcare applications were inspected thoroughly. The study was presented as a literature review using the most latest and up to date academic sources. The most major findings of this report were the possibilities that wearable healthcare technology has for eldercare, the increasing privacy concerns regarding wearable technology and the “tidal flood of information” that becomes an issue when individualized big data starts to generalize with the rise of wearable medical technology.