The experience of wearing a heart monitor
Nowadays there are more and more medical technologies which can be used for advanced imaging and testing, some can be helpful and for others it can be more wasteful. When used on a community with the correct risk factors then it can save lives, however if used to a community with limited health concerns, then it isn't very helpful and will just increase healthcare bills.
The health economists Amitabh Chandra and Jonathan Skinner tell a cautionary tale about medical technologies like advanced imaging and testing. Some are valuable for some people but are used in a great many more for whom it is wasteful. When applied to the population with the right risk factors, various tests of the heart can save lives. When applied to a population at very low risk, a great deal of it does little but add to our health care bill, waste patients’ time and lead to unnecessary procedures, which carry their own risks.

After the exchange of a few emails, my doctor ordered an at-home, 30-day heart monitor. It’s a marvel of modern technology. Electrodes on my chest fed my heart’s rhythm, over wires, to a recorder on my belt, which wirelessly communicated the data to my physician. With onboard software, it continuously monitored for signs of a heart attack.

As amazing as this technology is, it wasn’t amazing enough. The wires tickled my torso and puffed out my shirt. The bulk of the recorder on my belt poked my waist, hampering movement. I felt concerned looks whenever the monitor was in plain view. It was hard to forget I was a patient. I felt tethered to, not freed by, technology. These inconveniences were like small physical and psychological co-payments, increasing the cost of the test to me, the patient.

The cost proved too high, particularly since I was uncertain that I even needed 24/7 monitoring. (I mean the psychological costs, although my insurance company was billed about $2,200, of which it only paid about $100. My copay was $40). Within a day, I unplugged and immediately felt liberated. (Have no fear, I subsequently plugged back in when I felt the double beat and captured the recording that would confirm my doctor’s original diagnosis: benign.)

Technology improvements will reduce inconveniences like these to patients. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, imagines such a future. Technology will advance so that we will soon be able to unobtrusively monitor a wide range of our bodies’ processes — heart rhythm, blood pressure, blood sugar and more — generating streams of personal health data. Even today, my heart’s rhythm could have been assessed with a Band-Aid-like patch, requiring no wires or bulky monitor.