Garmin and ActiGraph Collaborate to Explore Health and Activity Monitoring Solutions on Wearable Devices
Garmin International, Inc. recently announced a collaboration with ActiGraph to create health and activity monitoring solutions for academic research, clinical trials, and remote patient monitoring. The collaboration will combine Garmin wearables with ActiGraph‘s CentrePoint data analytics platform to achieve these goals.
Travis Johnson, Garmin Health global product lead, stated that “[c]ombining the sensor data from Garmin wearables with the data capture and analytical expertise of the ActiGraph platform creates a powerful solution for many different patient monitoring applications.”
ActiGraph chief technology officer Jeremy Wyatt expressed similar praise for ActiGraph’s new partner, stating that “Garmin wearables produce high resolution, accurate data streams that are ideal for scientific analysis and can provide additional, novel endpoints to the ActiGraph software platform.”
Garmin International, Inc. is a subsidiary of Garmin Ltd. Garmin is known for developing a variety of products, such as handheld GPS devices and wearable fitness trackers. On the other hand, ActiGraph offers a variety of activity monitors and also software platforms to analyze data collected by such monitors.
Both Garmin and ActiGraph acknowledge the growing importance of wearable devices as potential health and medical tools. By partnering with ActiGraph, Garmin has indicated its interest in the future development of wearable devices with medical applications. Likewise, the partnership allows ActiGraph to utilize Garmin’s experience in developing wearable devices to apply and hone its data monitoring and management systems.
Scheduling an Appointment with Dr. Wearable Device
Fitbit, Inc. reported its quarterly results which led to an 10% increase in its share price.
The company recently announced that Adam Pellegrini will join the company as Vice President of Digital Health on September 6th. According to the press release, Pellegrini has over 20 years of experience across multiple sectors in healthcare and was previously Walgreens Boots Alliance’s Vice President responsible for integrating digital health with the company’s wearables. According to the press release, Pellegrini is tasked to connect Fitbit’s products, information, data, and insights in new and innovative ways into clinical settings, and to develop new partnerships with healthcare, pharma, and medical device companies.
According to press releases, Fitbit products have been used frequently in clinical trials with scientists having already performed more than 200 studies based on 2 billion minutes of Fitbit data. One article professes that wearable devices can not only detect subtle shifts in biometrics, like heart rate and body temperature, but can also help women become pregnant with research indicating a spike from a resting heart rate before ovulation.
Although currently not a substitute for your annual checkup, wearable devices could potentially in the future suggest medical diagnoses, administer medication, and provide counseling.
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