Overview
The latest digital health innovations are raising the bar on precision, portability and personalization. Treatment guided by genetic testing, wearable eye tracking and an at-home health care concierge are advancements that are redefining care.
During the CES® 2021 session “Essential Technologies for the New Health Revolution,” EY Global Health Sciences and Wellness Industry Leader and Life Sciences Industry Leader Pamela Spence spoke with three groundbreaking companies about their visionary healthcare services and devices.
Myriad Uses Genetics for Precision-Fit Healthcare
Myriad Women’s Health offers a suite of services to healthcare providers to help them integrate genetic testing and screening into their practice, informing women’s healthcare decisions.
Group President of Myriad Generic Laboratories Nicole Lambert explained that Myriad focuses on three areas:
Genetic testing and screening make possible precision medicine tailored to a particular patient. For example, with mental health, a patient may not respond well to a prescribed antidepressant. The traditional approach would be based on trial and error, trying different medications until one proved effective. With precision medicine, an upfront genetic test can help healthcare providers identify an effective treatment the first time.
“We need to change that paradigm so that the genetic test is ordered on the front end,” Lambert said, “so that patients don’t have to go through the trial-and-error approach.”
Lambert also emphasized the difference between recreational genetic testing, which is acceptable to slake curiosity, and clinical-grade genetic testing, which has been highly validated and can be used for critical healthcare decisions.
Mojo Vision Has an Eye for Augmented Reality
Mojo Lens, winner of the CES 2021 Last Gadget Standing competition, is an augmented reality (AR) contact lens that projects imagery to the wearer.
For people with low vision, Mojo Lens can enhance the contrast of an image or magnify text. Dr. Ashley Tuan, vice president of medical devices at Mojo Vision, says that the company hopes to help those with low vision regain their mobility and independence.
Because Mojo Lens has accurate motion detection of the eye’s movements, made possible by minute sensors, other use cases for the AR contact lens relate to tracking eye movement for cognitive assessments.
If a patient has head trauma, for example, the Mojo Lens can help diagnose the injury or be used to manage recovery. Degenerative mental diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, can also be diagnosed and monitored through eye tracking, making Mojo Lens useful for these patients as well.
CVS Health is Orchestrating At-Home Care for Seniors
CVS Health is looking at how to support seniors with their health at home. To keep seniors connected with family, friends and their health care team, CVS launched an at-home version of its HealthHUB care concierge service, called Symphony.
Just as CVS HealthHUB helps customers monitor chronic conditions by providing one-stop access to care and supplies, Symphony is an ecosystem of in-home and wearable devices anchored by a voice-activated hub.
“We build more and more around the consumer in the home, bridging home to both our stores and to our virtual care experiences online,” said Adam Pellegrini, senior vice president of enterprise virtual care and consumer health at CVS Health, a Consumer Technology Association (CTA)® member company. “It creates an omnichannel care experience.”
Symphony exemplifies the trend of healthcare moving into the home, which is one of the five megatrends coming out of CES 2021. CTA research forecasts that 14 million connected health monitoring units will ship in 2021, up 35% from 2020.
Learn more about the applications and technology behind these healthcare innovations by watching the full discussion, “Essential Technologies for the New Health Revolution.”