Transforming Chronic Disease Diagnosis and Intervention Through Network-Connected Portable Sensors

Impact of Chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), hypertension or diabetes on the society due to lost productivity and overall cost to the economy is significantly more than any other epidemic known to the human race. Chronic disease management is a significant problem in developing economies due to lack of expertise and diagnostics equipment at the primary care level. India has more than 120 million people suffering from chronic diseases and most of these patients need to go to a hospital for disease management. Recent research indicates that the intertwined nature of these illnesses is one of the key reasons of the exponential growth in chronic diseases. New solutions are urgently required to address this epidemic.

There are 3 key ingredients for a financially viable solution of chronic disease management – a) Affordable clinical grade diagnostics sensors; b) Micro EMR App to assist the primary care physician with predictive diagnosis and assist the patient to become more knowledgeable about the illness, symptoms, and medications; and c) Cloud based data analytics to create health demographic map to assist healthcare planners.

Availability of robust, affordable and portable health sensors for chronic diseases ensures that chronic diseases treatment takes place at the primary care level. With a network-connected solution, the patient information can be shared in real-time with a specialist. The combination of accessible diagnostics sensors and portable healthcare data empowers the patient to take charge of managing the chronic disease. At present, the hospitals have the control of the chronic disease management. Patient empowerment is the game changer for chronic disease management. And, at a macro level, health demographics can be way to identify key healthcare challenges and address them based on specific health data.