Current trends and challenges in MedTech and wellbeing apps

As for the US, just recently, believe it or not, it was tough to do telemedicine across the borders because the states had different laws. But when the pandemic came, the President issued executive orders to change it, making more doctors available to more people in a short time. And it's gonna stay. Now app developers can include telemedicine as a basic feature when before it was a showstopper.

Besides the fact we were separated from each other during lockdowns, it was painful for those who regularly visited gym or fitness classes. Even if you had equipment at home, you lost this social aspect of training. For many people, the workout was a very personal experience. It hammered such communities as, for example, cross-fit. We lost 4 or 5 gyms within a couple of months around my house during that time.

At the same time, those who got together to do exercises before the lockdown could connect and practice together via video calls. Some people even downloaded new apps that tracked their success. It didn't happen before, at least at that level.

My generation (I'm turning 53 this year) is very sensitive to our online information. But my daughters are kind of blasé about having most of their personal life visualised online. Every generation becomes more and more comfortable and relaxed about their data.

We can see the trend – we share more data online. The only exception has always been health data. By US law, you have to be very careful with someone's personal health information, regardless of whether they care or not. Those laws are still here but look at the idea of coronavirus vaccine passports.

I can't think of any example of how someone could force me to disclose my medical history unless it was for insurance. Now, to get on a plane, we'll likely have to show a document proving we went through this medical procedure.

I don't think this trend is over. There's a significant spike around it: "everything's wearable". Only a few devices have survived. With the rise of 5G and the change of connectivity that it's going to bring, we'll see a whole new generation of connected devices that will include information about your health. It's not just about the 5G aspect but also the AR side. It will be interesting.

At the latest CES, there was a device that showed veins on your arm. And it's not science fiction; it's a real thing. So, when those new devices become available – whether it's something like Google Glasses or something else that you wear – they will be fascinating things that we'll remember.

The latest versions failed because they showed data. But what's the problem they solve? What does this data allow me to do? It's great to have a nice device that I can show off as a tech-savvy person. But if it doesn't help me solve a problem, it's just bragging. Data is not sexy for users. Problem solving is sexy for them. Data is only useful as a tool enabling technology to solve problems.

The team at Flo, I think, deserves a lot of credit for showing how we should approach app development. When Yuri and Dmitry came up with it, no relevant available app helped women manage their reproductive cycle. And Flo didn't ask women to do anything they hadn't already done. Flo is an app that helps them solve problems that have existed since time immemorial. And that's why it has become so successful. So, find a problem that hasn't been solved efficiently, and do a better job. Use the new tools we have access to.

Back to my professional activity in 2016, one of the phrases that I heard in the medical community was "digital snake oil". Snake oil is an American idiom meaning fake medicine. If you make healthcare apps left, right, and centre, and if they fail the same way… Well, it's a big craze then. But most people know that to feel better, you just need to follow some basic principles. These are just basic best practices. If you ask a person how much they eat, they'll underestimate. If you ask them how much they exercise, they'll overestimate. People define themselves. And I think the apps that will be successful are not trying to trick you into doing something that you know won't work, but rather to help you visualise what is really happening to your wellbeing versus what you think is happening.

Also, people are becoming more amenable to sharing personal information. I think the real win for app developers will be that people pay more attention to their health and wellness. There are more opportunities for us to take actual personal performance data and help people optimise their wellbeing using it. Just as we optimise a car, an app or other non-biological entities.

Even though laws in the US state that everybody should have a digital healthcare record, if you go to the hospital and ask for your healthcare record, they will print a stack of papers out to you. Each time you go to your doctor, you have to fill out the same medical info. The healthcare sector here is the most old-school (apart, maybe, from the insurance sector only). Just imagine: healthcare paperwork costs the US hundreds of billion dollars (for example, it was $812 billion in 2017, 34.2% of overall US health spending back then). So, I saw all of this from the inside and realised there are immense areas of improvement in the healthcare sector. There are bugs to fix at every step of the process.