One-fifth of Southeast Asia’s population will be aged 60 and above by 2050, according to the World Health Organization. The greying population will drive up demand for more healthcare services, putting a strain on existing healthcare systems.
Smartwatches offer a potential lifeline, thanks to their ability to monitor vital signs continuously. By detecting anomalies in health data like heart rate or sleep patterns early, they can flag potential health issues before they escalate into crises. Such early warnings can be instrumental in preventing strokes, heart attacks, and diabetes-related complications.
Supporting healthcare research
Project Reset, a five-year nationwide preventive heart health study in Singapore, showcases the role of smartwatches in healthcare research. At least half of Singapore’s population are believed to be unaware that they have heart disease. Moreover, heart disease is a complex condition influenced by a range of factors including sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy diets, genetic predisposition and socioeconomic conditions.
Launched at the end of 2023, Project Reset looks to discover new biomarkers of heart disease by capturing a variety of data points to provide a full diagnostic picture for each participant.
A total of 3,000 participants will be given Garmin smartwatches, which will track their daily physical activities, stress levels, sleep quality and more. The Project Reset team will then use artificial intelligence to develop effective preventive strategies and make preventive heart health more accessible and relevant to individuals.
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“We see a lot of interest in using wearable data for clinical trials and healthcare research. Garmin can address that as our smartwatches offer multiple biosensor data streams and use algorithms to provide various health data such as VO2 max [the maximum amount of energy your body uses while exercising] and heart rate variability [which is a shift in timing between heartbeats that can indicate stress levels],” says Scott Burgett, senior director of Garmin Health Engineering.
He continues: “We also provide a connected ecosystem so that healthcare institutions can easily access those data [when permitted by the patient] and use it to detect and manage significant medical conditions [or for other medical research purposes].”
With Garmin Health application programming interfaces (APIs) and Garmin Health software development kits (SDKs), healthcare institutions can directly integrate information collected by Garmin wearables with their mobile applications, even if the information is not transmitted through Garmin’s servers or cloud platforms.
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Personalised, remote healthcare monitoring
Traditionally, healthcare relied on episodic care that could have led to potentially missed diagnoses and delayed interventions. Smartwatches enable a more proactive and personalised approach to healthcare by providing a more comprehensive picture of a patient’s health. By continuously collecting patient data and integrating that information into a healthcare provider’s remote patient monitoring systems, healthcare providers are empowered to have a more collaborative dialogue with the patient and make more informed decisions.
This is especially beneficial to patients with long-term illnesses, as exemplified by Temasek-backed health start-up Twin Health. The company developed the Whole Body Digital Twin service, which is a virtual representation of a user’s health that aims to help reverse, improve and prevent chronic metabolic diseases, including Type 2 diabetes.
Available on an app, the Whole Body Digital Twin service combines and analyses data from non-invasive devices. A glucose monitor sends continuous data about a user’s metabolism, including blood sugar levels, directly to the Twin Health mobile app. When combined with data from a Garmin fitness tracker, such as exercise stats, sleep data and heart rate, the Whole Body Digital Twin service can measure how blood sugar levels fluctuate based on the user’s activities. This results in a predictive model that provides individualised guidance to patients and their care team.
Users can thus have a real-time picture of what activities are having an impact as they work to reverse their Type 2 diabetes, from the Twin Health app. They are also encouraged to consult with healthcare providers and Twin Health coaches to get personalised guidance in categories like nutrition, sleep and activity. Under the guidance of the healthcare provider, users may even be able to safely reduce or eliminate medications.
Empowering personal well-being
The data collected by smartwatches can also help insurers conduct a more comprehensive and efficient health risk assessment. According to Garmin, the sensors in its wearables and the algorithms it developed with the medical community can help identify and screen for health issues such as anxiety and depression, diabetes, prediabetes, hypertension, and sleep-related issues.
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Additionally, the availability of real-time data can assist insurers in shifting from a static underwriting process to a continuous, long-term assessment that could positively affect consumers’ behaviours and outcomes.
Insurers can also use Garmin devices in the development of interactive app experiences, reward programmes and tailored health information to help promote health and well-being for their customers. Insurer AIA, for example, uses data from Garmin wearables (with user consent) to measure and incentivise healthy behaviour for customers under the AIA Vitality wellness programme.
Besides insurers, organisations can also leverage smartwatches to elevate corporate wellness. By integrating employees’ health data from their smartwatches with corporate wellness platforms, organisations can develop better wellness programmes to foster a healthier and more productive workforce while reducing healthcare costs.
In August 2023, the US Space Force announced a two-year trial to assess the feasibility of using smartwatches to replace annual physical fitness assessments. Garmin smartwatches were issued to active military members who have agreed to log workouts and complete monthly surveys provided by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
“By tracking two basic metrics — cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity — we can quickly verify that a Guardian (or a Space Force personnel) has met their physical requirements and is ready for duty. We hope that continuous fitness assessment — implemented via wearable technology — will promote a higher, more consistent level of fitness across the force with expected outcomes like reduced injury and stress, improved resilience and higher overall operational performance,” says Dr James Christensen, a product line lead with AFRL’s 711th Human Performance Wing.
If the trial is successful, the programme could be adopted by other branches of the Armed Services and include broader Department of Defense requirements such as musculoskeletal injury risk.
Garmin Instinct 2 Solar and Forerunner 55 smartwatches were chosen for this trial as they offer long battery life, high-quality biometric data and the ability to disable GPS functionality. Additionally, the Garmin Health API and secure data collection practices used are compliant with federal privacy and cybersecurity standards for software, sensors and data encryption.
Recognising that many countries in Asia Pacific will be faced with an ageing population, Garmin is committed to developing wearables (including smartwatches) and software products and providing a connected ecosystem to ultimately help improve people’s health. “Healthcare will [continue to] be a focus for us in Asia Pacific. Through our dedicated b2b health teams, we have collaborated with many key hospitals and universities in the region,” says Scoppen Lin, assistant general manager for Garmin Asia. Lin adds that the company plans to expand those partnerships where possible and work with other healthcare institutions in the future.
