Big Pharma Hands Out Fitbits To Collect Better Personal Data

An anonymous reader writes: Since the dawn of modern medicine, there have really only been two ways to know what a medical patient is doing: A) keep them around and monitor them, or B) ask them. The first is often impractical, and the second is fraught with misreporting. However, we're now in the age of data collection, and medical data is no exception. Pharmaceutical companies are gleefully passing out Fitbits and other wearables so they can more accurately test the drugs they make. Early trials have already found such devices to be better than human memory at reporting things like how much a patient walks. Other organizations are using movement data to algorithmically decide whether a patient needs a higher level of treatment. The article optimistically adds, "Down the line, wearables also could help pharmaceutical makers prove to insurance companies that their treatments are effective, thus reducing health costs."

Comments

How DARE they!

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare big EVIL Pharma collect accurate information that could ensure the safety of drugs and save people's lives!
It's an outrage!

Re:How DARE they!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's disgusting to me is the number of people who lead a devil-may-care lifestyle and then cry and moan about health problems to only turn around and cry and moan about what modern technology is available to them.
 
You want to battle "big pharma"? Put down the two liter soda, the doughnut and the grease burgers. Put down the xbox controller. Put down the smokes, the rum and cokes. Stop staring into the TV for 5 hours a day and take an hour out to move around a bit.
 
Society had fed itself into the cycle of chronic illness but man, don't we have to pry those bad habits out of their hands?
 
Now queue the 3% of those who are on a maintenance pharmaceutical regiment that legitimately are trying to keep up with their own well being but are still in a bad place.

Re:Why just pharmaceuticals?

[Coisiche]

Not just medical insurance companies. But that will come when wearing of these devices are made mandatory, probably an argument along the lines of "well only terrorists *wouldn't* wear them". Then following an accident anywhere (on the road, place of work, whatever) the insurance company will be able to analyse the data about your physical state prior to the incident to find a reason why they won't pay.

Wearing such devices wouldn't ever be mandated, you say? Sure they will, bribe... I mean lobby, enough politicians and it will happen.

People wouldn't willingly concede even more freedoms to wear these things, you say? Yeah... right.

The article optimistically adds..

[DirkDaring]

The article optimistically adds, "Down the line, wearables also could help pharmaceutical makers prove to insurance companies that their treatments are effective, thus increasing health profits."

Fixed.

Re:My kingdom for a hacker.

[gstoddart]

I see no reason at all for a fitness tracker to outright require that data be uploaded to someone else's hard drive

Really? Is vendor lock in too obvious for you?

If they sold you a device where you had all of your own data, and they weren't in the loop (with an EULA which says it's their data) you'd buy it once and they'd have no ability to make money off it and keep you coming back.

However, no one seems to be marketing to this particular niche

Because it doesn't make them money.

So all of these fancy internet connected things? They mostly exist to provide your data to corporations, so they can lock you in, monetize and sell your data, and ensure you need to keep going back to them.

Which means people need to realize they don't give a shit about what you want. You're just the meat puppet who buys the device to populate their data.

All this crap which wants to connect to the internet and give you an app? It's about someone making money off your data. Me, I refuse to buy this crap.