Should you recommend wearable devices for patients?

Wearable devices for patients are becoming more common in clinical practice, but do they truly make a difference in a patient's health?

From fitness trackers to heart monitors and Oura Rings, many clinicians are weighing the benefits and limitations before recommending them. Read below to see what your peers are saying, then log in or sign up to see the consensus and share your opinion. 

Question of the week

Do you actively counsel or advise your patients to use wearable devices (e.g., smartwatches, fitness trackers) for health monitoring?

 Consults

Key takeaways about wearable devices for patients: 

• Assess patient suitability
  Not every patient will benefit equally. Consider motivation, anxiety levels, cognitive ability, and tech-savviness before recommending a wearable device.
• Encourage meaningful use
  Devices work best when used to support healthy habits. Tracking activity, sleep, or step goals will be more beneficial than fixating on numbers, which can create stress.
• Monitor limitations and risks
  Be aware of false positives, unnecessary workups, and potential anxiety from data overload. Devices like smart watches can occasionally detect arrhythmias but require clinical verification.

Internal Medicine

"Yes, I do recommend them if the patient can afford them. The truth from what I have seen is that the majority of patients get excited and track activity, pulse, sleep at the beginning, then they slow down. I had quite a few cases where the smart watch picked up atrial fibrillation and helped with early detection of the diagnosis though."

Family Practice

"I haven’t counseled patients to get a wearable device, but so many already have them. For patients motivated by the information, it is very helpful to encourage them to keep up healthy diet, exercise, and sleep habits. Some patients, though, are overwhelmed by the extra information and need to not use one. So talking to patients and taking each patient individually is how I approach."

Family Practice

"I do not routinely advise patients to use wearable devices. I find that in many patients, it increases anxiety/misinformation, and data overload. Patient's are usually stressed enough about "keeping up" with their friends/family/coworkers on any number of levels, so I don't think adding this is a good idea. Rather than being focused on numbers of " how many steps I took today" or "how many calories I burned doing an activity", I just encourage patients to be active for at least 30 min daily ( ideally 60 minutes daily).

I teach them what their target heart rate zone should be and teach them how to measure their heart rate. Granted, some patients do respond better to personal challenges and are "data driven". These are the types of patients that I think are most likely to benefit from using a wearable fitness device."

Internal Medicine

"I have suggested them on multiple occasions to patients who can afford them. I wear an Apple Watch and have used it several times to Dx afib quickly when there is no access to an EKG machine. The watch can reduce anxiety and fear in people with benign arrhythmias."

Nurse Practitioner

"This is a great question! I don’t routinely recommend patients use a wearable device, but I think it’s a great idea. I think following data helps patients be more aware of their activity. I suppose there can be certain patients that it could increase the risk of data overload and increasing anxiety, but I think there is a large population of patients that it could be very helpful for.

Also many of these devices monitor for falls, which I think is excellent! Assessing which patients are cognitively appropriate and motivated for a wearable device is a great place to start."

Internal Medicine

"I don’t recommend wearables. The information can be difficult to interpret, increases anxiety, and focuses attention on numbers rather than how people feel and choices they make around food and activity. There are also a lot of false positive and false negative measures that I end up having to verify through further lab testing."

Internal Medicine

"We have been using remote BP monitoring. For the most part, it's a waste of time. Occasionally, we are able to adjust medications to improve BP control, but more often than not, it increases patients' anxiety and elevates their readings. Occasionally, smart watches have found some Afib, but often these are erroneous as well."

Family Practice

"I generally do not advise wearable devices other than tracking steps, as that does help some patients achieve activity goals in patients who are trying to lose weight or just maintain an active lifestyle. If patients are asymptomatic but triggered by their device of an issue, it prompts a costly workup which usually yields no benefit unless you pick up an episodic a-fib or something of that nature."

Internal Medicine

"It entirely depends on the patient and the situation. It is not something that I would routinely recommend. If the patient has a lot of underlying anxiety about health, it is likely to exacerbate that with the use of a wearable device. A fitness-savvy patient with low anxiety could benefit. It could also be useful to evaluate for initiation, cessation, and maintenance of b-blocker therapy."

Obstetrics & Gynecology

"It depends on the reason for wearing. Some patients it is good to track steps, etc, or help with calorie tracking. I would rather see patients using this versus multiple daily weigh-ins on a home scale. Most patients benefit when they need accountability reminders."

Explore additional peer perspectives on wearable devices for patients, or contribute your own insights, by reading the full case on Healthcasts.