If you visit an Indian hospital today and investigate that about the cost of services basis your mode of payment? If you were to pay in cash (from your own pocket) versus you pay through insurance, cashless (insurance company pays you) will the cost of services change. In my personal experience of the stories from family and friends. The difference seems to be significant. You pay less by cash than through insurance (by a factor greater than 2)
So, insurance companies end up paying higher amount of money for the services which end of the day might reflect in high insurance premium for the policy! If we analyze the situation of various stakeholders, one thing becomes clear that insurance companies make money when we are not in hospital and doctors make money when we are in hospital. We can clearly see that incentives of the two parties are not aligned and that abuses the patient in her care path.
Can we think of a possibility of using wearable technology to be used in monitoring the health of an insured person by a hospital 24×7? Where the duo of (doctors + insurance company) offer this device as a healthcare monitoring & insurance service. Where they are incentivized to keep the patient out of the hospital (as in doing preventive healthcare rather than curative)
It will be good to know the thoughts of the readers of this article? Do you think such an implementation is possible and if not why?
Thanks and Regards
-sachin
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Sachin GaurJune 11, 2012
I think wearable tech should work far mor better than todays technology because wearable comes with the motto of maintaining wellness rather then treating after effects. I am presently designing a baby sleeping bag which monitors the body temperature, sound detection, moves detection and checking the humidity level in the stroller. This is for newborns and first time parents. Hope we get it big and it works well. We have developed a prototype and it works as of now. We are using wireless charging and bluetooth technology as of now.
Thanks Amee for the comment. your project sounds cool. would love to know more.
As of my belief wearable tech can play a big role able in preventive healthcare. What I can imagine is a wearable waterproof wristwatch having sensors to monitor body temperature, blood pressure , heart rate etc and any abnormality in these parameters can warn us to take proactive measures. These wearable tech should come in some technology which we human are habitual of wearing like wristwatch to achieve higher adaptability. May be samsung or other big players might come up with more health monitoring features in future. Samsung already has wearable tech to monitor heart rate. Also with more information at fingertips doctors will be at better position to foresee any disease which a patient might fell prey to in future.