I spoke with Amy McDonough (@amybmcdonough) General Manager for FitBit Health solutions
We talked about BMS-Pfizer partnership on A-Fib and their approach towards tracking individuals and the challenge of alerts or more accurately over-alerting. FitBit (now part of Google – news broke after this interview) has been focused on partnering with clinicians to minimize the disruption from user-driven devices that can flood the system with false negatives from concerned users. We discuss sleep one of the most important aspects of our health and the development of the SleepScore that was a direct response to their user’s requests.
This interview took place shortly before news broke of the acquisition of FitBit. There has been plenty of commentaries positive and negative and while the concern of the misuse of personal data remains I believe if this data was not already being used (remember they signed a deal with BMS-Pfizer) it is going to be in some form. As I heard recently
You can’t have personalized medicine without surveillance
I share the concern that this data can be used against you and this would have been true with or without the Google acquisition. The positive aspect of this deal is the emboldened FitBit is now better equipped and funded to take on the marketplace making the consumer and medical wearable and monitoring market at a minimum a two-horse race – competition is always a good thing that stimulates innovation. So I’m a fan and look forward to seeing some rapid advancements in this space.
