We have adapted our lives to surround our devices, and now doctors are jumping on the bandwagon, as well. Doctors at Hackensack Hospital, in New Jersey, are finding a way to incorporate fitness tracker into their medical care. In a small test group, patients who were at a high risk for heart attacks, high blood pressure, and other ailments used fitness trackers to log their steps, stairs climbed, and food intake. Aside from patients being able to bring these logs to their doctor’s appointments, doctors were able to monitor their patients throughout. This gives doctors the chance to see weight gain, medication issues, and lack of exercise, in-between regularly scheduled visits. Doctors are predicting that monitoring patients will give them the ability to see medical issues growing before their patients end up in the emergency room.
Being avid users of fitness trackers, we think that is a great way to stay on top of your health. As we have talked about in previous articles about fitness trackers, they really do make a difference, and doctors agree. Hackensack Hospital believes that even just having patients wearing their devices will give them a reason to make healthy changes in their lives. In a long term view, teams would have to be hired to monitor these logs on a daily basis, adding to costs. We also want to stress that fitness trackers should be used in conjunction with regular doctor visits, not instead of them.
