Wearables Increase Likelihood Of Scheduling Doctors Visits, Mt. Sinai Poll Finds.

OCEANSIDE, NY. — Could wearing an Oura ring or an Apple watch make you more likely to schedule appointments with a physician? According to a new Mt. Sinai South Nassau poll released Tuesday, 63% of people who wore a wearable health monitoring device said that wearing the device — whether it was an Apple Watch, Oura ring or WHOOP band — said wearing the device made them more likely to visit their physician.

Mt. Sinai South Nassau Hospital released the results of its twenty third annual “Truth in Medicine” poll — an independent poll conducted through a grant from Four Leaf Credit Union — Tuesday, in a panel discussion with Executive Vice President of Clinical and Professional Affairs and Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Rob Sharma and Medicine Department Chair Dr. Aaron Glatt. The purpose of the poll, Mt. Sinai officials said, is to gauge public knowledge on the pressing healthcare issues of the day in hopes of advancing the relationship between Mt. Sinai staff and patients at the hospital. Previous iterations of the poll have focused on alcohol consumption and its links to cancer, cell phones in schools, mental health services, holiday stress, the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, marijuana legalization and screen time.

This year, the subject of interest was wearables, devices that can go on a person's wrist, finger or elsewhere on the body that allow them to track their own breathing, caloric intake, heart health, sleep quality and step count.

Of the 600 respondents, 44 percent said they wear a health monitoring or wearable fitness device, with 39 percent using direct-to-consumer healthcare products including at-home COVID-19 testing kits.

In their Tuesday discussion of the impact of wearable monitors, the doctors highlighted that they’ve seen patients with more data to accompany irregular heartbeats, glucose levels and other ongoing medical issues they deal with. The result, Sharma said, has been more informed patients.

“Spot data is helpful, but this longitudinal, continuous data is fantastic, it’s given them more agency,” Sharma said.

Glatt alluded to a common struggle faced by cardiac patients when discussing wearables: By the time someone experiencing irregularities with their heartbeat is able to see a doctor, Blatt said, the irregularity has often subsided, leaving patients to describe the symptoms without any data. The tracking data, Glatt said, alleviates that issue.

The doctors also spoke on the data security concerns sometimes reported with regards to wearable devices, with a moderator noting that wearable devices sometimes inspire fear of a “big brother” that might come into possession of a patient’s health data. In recent months, that fear became serious enough among some consumers that Oura CEO Tom Hale had to assuage concerns while onstage at a tech conference in September.

From the doctors’ point of view, however, the question of data security and privacy is outweighed by the benefits that could be gained from continuous monitoring of one’s health.

“Unfortunately, we live in a world where all of our information is everywhere, and the sense of having data security is a fallacy. There is no such thing as data security, unfortunately,” Sharma said. “I don’t think you should be deterred from learning more about what’s happening to you because you’re worried that Amazon, Apple or somebody’s going to have that information. They do have, in their [end user license] agreement terms, what is and isn’t shared. So, if that’s important, you can get that level of detail, but I think most folks have resigned themselves to the fact that we live in a free data society.”

“I would not worry about these things, if there was something that was important,” Glatt added.

Among the interesting trends revealed in the poll was one along age and gender lines: Men under 50, the poll results revealed, were both less likely to be using wearables to track their day-to-day health and less-likely to schedule regular appointments with a physician than other respondents.

Some of that, Glatt said, is a function of how people of different ages view their health.

“Young people are more immortal in their thinking,” Glatt said.

Of men under 50 that reported wearing devices, 61 percent said they were more likely to visit the doctor thanks to their device.

Finally, the poll provided a glimpse into how wearable health trackers could become hot commodities this holiday season: One-third of respondents said an Apple Watch, Oura ring or WHOOP band was on their wish list this December, with respondents who already owned a device most likely to want a new one.

Currently, Apple Watches start at $249, while an Oura Ring 4 retails for $350 and a WHOOP 5.0 band retails for $129.