Despite good health outcomes, clunky design holds wearables back

Although most patients with medical devices appreciate their effect on health outcomes and quality of life, difficult-to-use design and tech issues hold the wearables back.

In a March 2 report, Software Advice surveyed more than 450 patients who use medically prescribed wearable devices such as glucose monitoring devices.

Five main findings: 

  1. Most patients using their devices appreciated them, despite their flaws. Eighty-six percent of patients agreed that their devices enabled their physicians to provide a higher quality of care and improved their own health and quality of life. 

  2. However, 87 percent of patients have recorded incorrect data into their devices, 85 percent of whom did so because of poor usability of the device. 

  3. Commercial devices have similar or higher ease of use and better user experience, with 43 percent of respondents saying they prefer commercial devices over medical ones and only 9 percent saying they prefer their medical wearable. 

  4. A major drawback of the devices was security, with 39 percent of patients citing privacy vulnerability with health data as a main issue. 

  5. Seventeen percent of patients also cited IT issues as a main drawback of their medical device.

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