Quick, someone mix up a batch of Kool-Aid! Someone at Silicon Valley cheerleader TechCrunch has dissed health data, and with it, the notion of the quantified self.
Despite the proliferation of fitness trackers and other wearable devices, “we haven’t seen a dramatic improvement in our nation’s health with the emergence of the ‘quantified self movement’ and the pervasiveness of wearables. We still live in a country where two-thirds of us are overweight or obese and 80 percent of adults do not get the recommended amount of exercise,” wrote Dr. Hanson Lenyoun, director of health at Mark One, a health and wellness startup in San Francisco.
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Mark One is the maker of the Vessyl smart cup, or it would be if the product hadn’t been delayed to market for more than a year. Vessyl is best known in these parts for being thoroughly ridiculed by Stephen Colbert on the “Colbert Report” in 2014.
But I digress. A lot.
According to Lenyoun, data needs context. “While the data alone may be useless, the problem isn’t the data itself, it’s how we design the context around the data,” he said.
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“We must surround ourselves with digital tools that provide us with the information we need to make meaningful choices about behaviors that impact our health in the short time they have our attention. One example of a tool doing just this is Moov, a wearable fitness device that doesn’t just track movement, it demonstrates tangible ways to make a workout better,” Lenyoun explained.
Lenyoun also gave a shout-out to Omada Health for its Prevent program that employs health coaches to help coordinate care for people at risk for chronic diseases. Indeed, Prevent has proven its worth in one trial with a Medicare Advantage population.
Perhaps this is why Fitbit has gotten serious about wanting to be a player in healthcare. Still, not all wellness programs are created equal. Some fail miserably. The ones that are successful offer engagement on multiple levels.
A wearable alone won’t solve the nation’s obesity problem or help people manage congestive heart failure. Companies pushing the quantified self are beginning to figure this out and move past the hype.
