How Fitbit Will Replace Your Doctor

I was sure the email I got from Fitbit yesterday was a joke.

It said I earned some kind of badge having to do with footwear or living in the city or both. Here’s the message I got…

So, yes, I wear a Fitbit bracelet.

It tracks some of the exercise I do. Though I estimate just a fraction.

It doesn’t track my bike rides. Or the elliptical machines I use at the gym.

But this article isn’t a critique of the Fitbit bracelet. A company sent it to me as a gift. Fitbit has higher-end and more updated models now. I’m sure they work better than mine.

I chuckled when I read the email, though. I had just returned from a weeklong vacation. Did a lot of eating and drinking. And gained a few pounds.

I didn’t feel exactly fit. In fact, I’ve never felt less deserving of any kind of exercise award as I did upon reading that email.

Fading Hype

Fitness wearables have gotten a lot of hype over the past couple of years. And a lot of money has chased that hype.

This is what the past few years look like…

It got a little crazy in 2014. The money going into wearable funding roughly tripled compared to the preceding three years.

I was never a big fan myself. I’ve been regularly working out for 40 years. I didn’t need a wearable to lure me into a gym or convince me to jump on a bike.

But I wore the fitness bracelet hoping to see what the buzz was about.

I quickly learned that the technology has got to get better. But that’s not the biggest challenge.

Two things need to happen. One, the industry needs to prove that wearables promote health.

It seems the industry takes this as self-evident. That proving it would be a big waste of time.

That’s a big mistake.

Wearable makers are setting themselves up for a rude awakening. If they don’t wise up, they’re going to suffer the same fate as luminosity.com.

Luminosity provides online games that exercise the mind.

And if it had just kept its marketing campaigns to that description, it would have avoided a mess of problems. Instead, it made some enticing claims.

It said players of its games benefited from improved performance on everyday tasks. It also said playing its games protected users from mental impairment.

It all might be true. But Luminosity did not have the science to back it up. So it struck a deal with the FTC to pay a $2 million fine. (The more severe penalty of $50 million was suspended due to its “financial condition.”)

Where’s the Proof?

Just before I left on vacation, I met Dr. Andrey Ostrovsky for dinner. I’ve known Andrey for about a year now. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Care at Hand, a company in our Startup Investor portfolio.

Andrey told me that without scientific evidence to back up the use of fitness wearables, doctors can’t be bothered with the data they produce. Which leads us to problem No. 2…

Even if it were proven, doctors simply don’t want to be inundated with raw data from wearables.

Software companies will be the ones filling this gap. They’ll manage and organize this data (plus other “outside” data such as home diagnostic tests), so doctors can readily use it.

If done right, it’ll let doctors better understand how different diseases and conditions relate to each other.

This is where early investors should be looking for the next great company in the wearable fitness and health space.

Care at Hand: Digital Data Effectively Put to Work

Our portfolio company Care at Hand gives customers access to an “outside” data set (though not from wearables). It’s more unique (and therefore potentially more valuable) than general fitness wearable data or home diagnostic tests or even genome sequencing.

The company has also proved the data’s predictive ability – for example, which patients are most at-risk.

And it’s made it easy to integrate its algorithms into the existing system of a user (for example, a hospital).

Why did we choose Care at Hand as opposed to an “exciting” maker of wearables?

Listen, I fully expect wearable technology to improve. The problem is, a dozen companies are already competing for customers. And most of them are in the later rounds of fundraising. They’re only accepting VC money.

That’s fine by me. Picking a winner from that bunch wouldn’t be easy in any case.

I’d rather take a much easier road: Finding the software company that will turn the upcoming flood of raw data into something that will lower costs and increase positive outcomes for medical providers.

That software doesn’t exist yet. But it will.

In that world, I wouldn’t be getting some cheesy email award from a wearable maker. Instead, I’d be getting personalized advice from my doctor’s office that I could actually act on.

Can you imagine?

I can. The chart it’s based on would be automatically stitched together by a software-provided algorithm that took the last 48 hours of wearable-derived raw data.

The advice itself?

Not really from my doctor. It would actually be generated by the same software.

Where Did My Doctor Go?

Good question.

This same software should eventually make most general practitioners redundant, with routine decisions and personal interface the domain of nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

Software is eating the world. Next up are doctors.

Invest early and well,