Two Things Hospitals Can't Afford To Ignore

The next time someone asks your patient how they’re doing, they might stop to check their data before answering. Skeptical? Consider: An activity and sleep-monitoring device from Fitbit was Amazon.com’s top-selling health and personal care item this past holiday shopping season. Earlier this year, Google announced that it is testing “smart” contacts that monitor glucose content in the wearers’ tears. And the much-anticipated Apple iWatch is being hyped as a “revolution” in health and fitness monitoring.

Personal wellness tracking devices—called wearables—sit directly at the center of two powerful trends that are transforming the healthcare industry: the consumerization of healthcare and explosive data proliferation.

Healthcare consumerization—another way of saying “patients are taking a more active role in their own health care experiences”—has brewed a sea of change for the industry. In fact, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has made patient satisfaction worth roughly one third of at-risk reimbursement for hospitals participating in the Hospital Value-based Purchasing Program...