The Stanford School of Medicine is going to open a new branch dedicated to the integration of mobile technology into healthcare. The Stanford Center for Medical Mobile Technology will be run by Dr. Matthew Smuck, co-founder of Vivametrica, a commercial firm specializing in wearable tech’s healthcare applications.
Wearable tech is a burgeoning field that is projected to grow rapidly over the next several years, and its applications in the realm of healthcare – often via biometric technology – are the subject of intense interest and a lot of nascent activity. Apple has introduced its HealthKit, which will allow the collection and analysis of iPhone users’ health data through the devices’ biometric sensors, and smaller firms like HealthLoop jumping into the mix. It’s thought that the biometric data and remote communications provided by the ongoing mobile revolution can have huge benefits in the realm of telehealth, allowing doctors to offer diagnosis and guidance to patients without requiring them to physically be in the same room.
Vivametrica is another player in that same growing field, albeit one that has specialized in wearable tech. As one of its co-founders, Dr. Smuck would seem well-suited to his new role at Stanford, where his mandate will be to figure out how the biometric health data collected from mobile devices can be interpreted and applied in more meaningful ways. Another Vivametrica co-founder, Dr. Christy Lane, will also be on staff at the Stanford Center for Medical Mobile Technology to provide expertise in the field of exercise rehabilitation, a field of study that seems particularly ripe for biometric enhancement.
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