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Frogdesign's Design Mind blog presents 20 Tech Trends for 2013. Here's one:
Sensors, social networks change health behavior—on a large scale
By Associate Creative Director Montana Cherney, San FranciscoWhy just prompt behavior change on an individual level, when we can do so much more? Behavior evolution—or behavior change at scale and over time—is the new frontier. Ubiquitous connectivity, real-time remote monitoring, and social networking are three of the most prevalent factors revolutionizing health care. We’ll see more and more people connect to devices, share their data, and reach out to others. Doing so will allow them to enhance their care experiences by relating with others with similar symptoms, receiving social support for achieving goals, and “crowdsourcing” treatments and cures.
In addition to patients receiving more personalized guidance, individual health data that is collected will increasingly be used to provide more proactive care at the population level. Yes, many connected care solutions that collect individual data exist today, from Patients Like Me, a data-centric social networking site; Cure Together, a health-tracking site; and Asthmapolis, a system that allows patients to connect to a mobile app via a sensor-enabled inhaler. In 2013, expect more services such as these to emerge and grow. They synthesize information to make it more relevant to providers and patients alike, and therefore actionable; then these services broadcast their analyses to improve the quality of life for not just one, but for all.