There has been a revolution in the measurement of health and fitness writes Dominic Howard.
Confidentiality concerns
But are employees open to the idea of wearing a device that gathers information about their health and wellbeing on behalf of their employer? How would employers and insurers guarantee the confidentiality and security of employees’ health data?
The wearable hardware producers are addressing these concerns. Fitbit, the market leader in the UK for the sale of wearable devices, with 85% share already offers corporate wellness programmes in the US that track health and progress at an individual, team and company-wide level.
“The real value of wearables is to make people aware of their own health, because at the moment such awareness is very poor: even knowing when to seek medical help”
In September, Fitbit announced in the US that its corporate wellness offer was now compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the US law governing the security and privacy of personal health information used by health insurance plans.
This was a big step forward and allows Fitbit Wellness to integrate data with corporate wellness partners, health plans and self-insured employers. Over 50 Fortune 500 companies are currently Fitbit Wellness customers and the company has similar plans for the UK.
The other factor for consideration when looking at the potential for wearables to be used in employee wellness schemes in the UK is cost.
This is a significant concern, especially for smaller employers, but must be balanced against the opportunity cost of improving the health of the workforce and the boost in productivity this can bring.
The cost burden of sick employees is moving from the National Health Service to the employer. In the UK, the Government’s introduction of Fit Notes to replace Sick Notes puts the onus on employers to aid a sick employee’s return to work when possible.
This would include paying for certain treatments, such as physiotherapy or for equipment such as specialist seating.
Last year there was the introduction of the voluntary Workplace Wellbeing Charter by Public Health England that encourages employers of all sizes to work towards accredited status by taking actions to improve the wellbeing of their workforce.
September this year saw the introduction of the Fit for Work health service, designed for SMEs with no or limited occupational health support. Employers in England and Wales can now refer employees to the service, providing extra assistance for employees absent from work for more than four weeks due to illness.
Those referred receive a consultation with an occupational health professional who will then work with the employee and employer to agree a personalised return-to-work plan.
While the new service may potentially help employers cut sick pay costs, and serves to highlight to employers just what those costs are.
It is uncommon for small firms to quantify absentee sickness costs. At the moment, take-up of wearable devices is mainly among a self-selecting group of athletic people trying to improve their performance, but these devices are certain to enter the mainstream workplace.
Improving health of the herd
The question is: can we use wearable device to stimulate people less interested in health and fitness to prompt more positive behaviour?
Many in the insurance industry have asked whether more specific benefits form wearables could be gained, as they could show irregularities in blood pressure and heart rate, with obvious benefits of early diagnosis.
But as Dr Kelly points out: “The legitimacy of these devices in medical terms has yet to be established. The one concern about wearables is they are not medical devices.”
In short, wearables can increase the health of the herd and track group changes, but for measuring at the individual level a shift to medical wearables would be needed. Would this be a step too far for the average employee?
A practical advantage of wearables, such as smart watches in the workplace is that they enable employees to reduce dependence on bulky devices and screens, allowing users to access email, reminders and schedules, all from their wrist.
Wearables are unlikely to replace tablets, laptops, and smartphones entirely and both their design and adoption is still nascent, but they do offer a convenient alternative for certain tasks and situations, and crucially, they all come with access to health tracking applications as standard.
The genie is definitely out of the bottle. When we look back in later years, we might recognise 2015 as the year when wearable technology in the workplace was born.
We will laugh at how primitive it seemed, while nano robots smaller than red blood cells travel through our bodies strengthening our bones and repairing our teeth.
Dominic Howard is a director at Best Doctors Europe
