Medicine has traditionally worked with snapshots.
A patient visits a doctor. Blood pressure is checked. Tests are ordered and eventually diagnosis follows.
But the human body is constantly changing.
Heart rate, sleep, activity, temperature and breathing patterns vary throughout the day. Digital technologies can now capture many of these changes through wearables, smartphones and connected sensors. The FDA recognizes digital health technologies as tools that use software, connectivity and sensors to support healthcare..
This has given rise to digital biomarkers.
A digital biomarker is a measurable physiological or behavioural signal collected through digital technology. Unlike a single clinical reading, it can provide information across time.
But more data is not always better
Digital biomarkers also raise important concerns.
A change in heart rate does not automatically mean disease. Algorithms can produce false alarms. Excessive monitoring may create anxiety and alert fatigue.
Privacy is another major issue. Continuous health data can reveal intimate details about a person’s behaviour and physiology. WHO highlights privacy, security, evidence and equitable access as key challenges in digital health.
Most importantly, prediction must lead to meaningful action. A digital signal should support clinical judgement, not replace it.
The future of preventive medicine
The next generation of healthcare may move from periodic measurements to continuous patterns.
The question may no longer be only:
“What is wrong with the patient today?”
It may become:
“What is changing in this person, and could that change predict a future health problem?”
Digital biomarkers could help make prevention earlier, more personalized and continuous. Technology will be valuable only if it improves decisions, protects privacy and ultimately benefits patients.
The question for you:
If your body could predict a health problem before you felt sick, would you want to know or would you rather not know what your data might reveal?
MBH/PS