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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- A major drawback of the devices was security, with 39 percent of patients citing privacy vulnerability with health data as a main issue.
- Seventeen percent of patients also cited IT issues as a main drawback of their medical device.