Abstract
As demand for preventive and precision healthcare continues to grow, so has the need for a new class of biomarkers—ones that are highly portable, reliable, and immediate, yet suffer no lack of precision or accuracy. Enter the domain of the digital biomarker.
Digital refers to the method of collecting information. Instead of blood tests and medical imaging, digital biomarkers use sensors and algorithms across a plethora of available connected hardware and software tools. In this space, the patient is increasingly a consumer: one who wears, ingests, or has digital devices implanted. In many cases, these patient-consumers have some autonomy over when information is collected and with whom to share it.
Connection with portable, personal or home-based products defines the landscape of digital biomarkers. Given their global ubiquity, smartphones are the natural home base for collecting, analyzing, and distributing the information gained from cameras, microphones, and other sensors embedded in digital technology.
For years, smartphone and big, data-rich companies like Apple and Google have been developing digital health programs of their own. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, they are forging the path of not only collecting, but also analyzing the large data sets digital biomarkers create, so much so that they have helped usher in a new class of medical device, the ‘software as a medical device' (SaMD). The Apple Watch is perhaps the iconic symbol of a SaMD, with its ability to detect elevated heart rates and atrial fibrillation. Fitbit, Samsung Galaxy Watch, and other devices are related SaMD cousins.
“There's little doubt that artificial intelligence will power the next wave of tools that can improve many facets of healthcare: delivery, access, and so much more,” says David Feinberg, head of Google Health. “We're already making strides in organizing and making health data more useful thanks to work being done by Cloud and artificial intelligence teams.”
(Excerpted from “The Biomarker Future is Digital”, Clinical OMICs January-February 2020)