JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

A multitude of digital health tools have been developed to monitor, record, and predict health related events in healthy subjects and patients. In clinical settings although promising advances have resulted in near-term benefits, their use in longer term studies is often limited due to the level of friction and burden imposed on the subject, often requiring active engagement by the patient with digital devices and/or its interfaces. Herein we outline how smart ring technologies could form the anchor point for passive patient monitoring systems by offering a near-ideal compromise between device form factor and data capturing capacity. By use of wireless technologies, such devices could form integral components of a hub-and-spoke health monitoring system, feeding data to cloud based patient HER’s, and allowing push-pull actions through bidirectional communication. Such capabilities could have immediate utility in longitudinal monitoring of patients diagnosed with slow progressing disease such as cardiovascular and neurodegenerative conditions. Moreover, if integrated through provisioned federated wireless networks the technology could become components of global health care in nations that are currently under-served by conventional healthcare provisions. We outline technological and economic considerations for adoption of such systems and potential next steps for implementation.