Wearables, the Marketplace and Efficiency in Healthcare: How Will I Know That You’re Thinking of Me?

Abstract

Technology corporations and the emerging digital health market are exerting increasing influence over the public healthcare agendas forming around the application of mobile medical devices (wearables). By promising quick and cost-effective technological solutions to complex healthcare problems, they are attracting the interest of funders, researchers, and policymakers. They are also shaping the public facing discourse, advancing an overwhelmingly positive narrative predicting the benefits of wearable medical devices to include personalised medicine, improved efficiency and quality of care, the empowering of under-resourced communities, and delivery of health services previously unavailable t..