Telehealth & Wearables: Transforming Healthcare Access, Data, and Patient Outcomes
The use of telehealth and wearable health technology is now commonplace. Video calls are a standard feature of modern healthcare, while sensors worn on the wrist monitor one’s heart, sleep, and other health indicators. According to the American Hospital Association (AHA), the U.S. could face a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. Telehealth, especially audio-only options, plays a key role in maintaining access to care, particularly for older adults. A 2021 ASPE report found that 56.5% of patients aged 65+ used audio-only visits, partly because over 26% of Medicare beneficiaries lacked access to a computer or smartphone at home.
As per Market Research Future Analysis, the Telehealth Market was valued at 9.48 USD Billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to 85.0 USD Billion by 2035, reflecting a CAGR of 22.06% from 2025 to 2035.
The empowerment case: access, action, and outcomes
Telehealth offers significant benefits by improving access to care for patients with chronic conditions, those in remote areas, and individuals with mobility or scheduling challenges. It reduces travel time and streamlines healthcare through faster triage, referrals, and follow-ups. Many companies are advancing in virtual consultation services. For instance, Opus Diagnostics has partnered with Dr.Online to offer a convenient virtual consultation experience. Their user-friendly platform allows customers to quickly connect with trusted healthcare professionals. This efficient process empowers individuals to take greater control of their health while saving time and effort. Telehealth brings together speed, convenience, and high-quality care in one seamless solution.
Wearables augment traditional monitoring tools with powerful layers of continuous data. Prompting discussions and behavior changes, alerts to rhythms, step counts, heart rates, sleep duration, and sleep patterns are useful. For cardiometabolic risk, emerging data suggest that richer metrics from wearables, beyond simple step counts, are being evaluated as better estimators of fitness and long-term outcomes in large cohorts. Wearable sensory technology enables remote monitoring of vital health metrics like heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation through small devices that transmit data to phones or the cloud for patient and physician access. In neurology, they are especially useful for assessing gait and posture in spinal conditions, with potential future use in Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and stroke recovery. While gait monitoring is still developing due to its complexity, current devices like smartwatches lack medical-grade accuracy. However, wearables offer the advantage of tracking real-life movement, though inconsistent usage may lead to misleading data.
The Anxiety Case: Signal Oversaturation, Questionable Analytics, and Screened Boundaries
For a subset of the population, the same attributes of technology that facilitate convenience can of equal sense, oversimplify a complex phenomenon. Continuous data invites incessant over analysis and over interpretation, ultimately devolving into a form of distress. A heart rate spike during a stressful meeting, or a Fourier Order Parameter estimated during sleep may give rise to overthinking even when the phenomenon under question is extraneous. Histories demonstrate that self-reported measures of stress tends to not correlate with smart watch measured “stress,” physiology does not equal emotion.
After the initial diagnosis, “creeping” refers to adjustments or augmentations made to it and can be a source of confusion. Blood pressure “insights,” arrhythmia “detectors,” and illness “predictions” all demonstrate behaviors that would be classified as “wellness,” yet can be misconstrued as medical terminology. These differing boundaries all rely on the “low wellness high risk” presumption.
Privacy and Control: The Overlooked Drivers of Concern
The convenience of telehealth services and motivational wearables comes hand in hand with persistent unease concerning data privacy. In the United States, personal consumer applications and wearables are not covered under HIPAA, which only governs providers and health plans. These apps and wearables are subject to other regulations like the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule.
Stronger privacy regimes, like the GDPR, are internationally pushing for clearer consent and data minimization, yet the enforcement remains quite scant, making the sector transition toward privacy and emerging enforcement frameworks. The majority of users are unable to make sense of trust marketing lingo instead of verified regulations due to the lack of simple dashboards to monitor what data is collected, controlling and deleting relevant data, and seamlessly transitioning services.
COVID-19 Impact
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated global telehealth adoption as in-person visits became restricted. According to WHO, countries in the European Region rapidly expanded digital health services, with 84% using teleradiology, 77% offering telemedicine, and 51% providing telepsychiatry. Norway emerged as a leader, leveraging over 30 years of teleradiology experience and expanding telemedicine and telepsychiatry. Innovations like AI in image analysis and platforms such as eMeistring enhanced care delivery. Regulatory changes, including the 2023 legalization of e-consultations for sick leave, further supported telehealth growth.
Conclusion
Telehealth services and wearables enable new possibilities and new challenges. They broaden access and encourage healthier habits and enable clinicians to intervene earlier if managed well. If managed poorly, they encourage obsession, unwarranted alarms, and privacy concerns. At present, the opportunity lies in design empowering users by seamlessly integrating devices into clinical workflows and relinquishing substantial control to users regarding their data. If that is achieved, smartwatch alerts will be more often nudges towards fitness and far less jarring bursts of anxiety.
