Your Health on the Go | Health & Wellness This Week

This article is part of ParkerWhite’s weekly series, “Health and Wellness This Week,” a roundup of the latest healthcare marketing news and what it means for your marketing strategy.This week, we look at why corporate structures plan on integrating wearable devices for their employees, how Apple is leading in the race for the healthcare market, and what technology we may need for the future of self-driving cars.

This week in health and wellness:

• Wearable devices boost corporate productivity
• Apps ease doctor and patient relationships
• Technology for self-driving cars and what it can do for you

Using Wearable Devices to Help Promote Employee Wellness

‍The trend to wear devices in order to better your health is skyrocketing. Everyone wants to become a healthier, better version of themselves. ABI Research has discovered that 13 million devices will be integrated into corporate-wellness plans over the next five years with the idea that this will boost interest in participating in company culture, create fun team dynamics, and overall productivity.Employees may see themselves wearing devices such as Nike’s FuelBands, Fitbit, or Jawbone’s UP 24. These products assist in tracking the wearer’s movement, eating and sleeping patterns, and gives them the chance to share their accomplishments and goals.

‍Marketing Strategy Insights

• Employers are looking to boost employees’ health with wearable devices.
• The wearables market will expand its growth in corporate environments.
• Wearable devices can create a team-like environment welcoming participation in health and motivation.

Apple's HealthKit Gets A Checkup At Top Hospitals

‍Technology is being seen one of many ways to cut spiraling medical costs. Knowing that, Apple has created its new HealthKit technology to see if it can monitor patients successfully and ultimately assist in trimming medical costs. Healthkit is a designed framework used to create apps to gather and share medical information about its users, this data can then be remotely sent to doctors and hospitals. So far 14 leading hospitals have launched pilot programs for HealthKit. The programs aim to capture early signs of medical problems from patients with chronic ailments such as diabetes or hypertension.Apple’s competitors are Google and Samsung. Both of which have already launched similar services. Ultimately, it is up to the doctors to decide if sorting through all the medical data they could potentially receive is worth their time and investments. For these types of apps to work in medical practices, common standards will need to be solidified and the security that no patient-doctor leaks would take place is priority.

‍Marketing Strategy Insights

• Apple, Google, and Samsung are vying to win a piece of the healthcare market.
• HealthKit assists doctors in detecting early problematic signs in patients and share information to hospitals and patients.
• The concern with this technology is private information leaking, this concern can put competitors ahead if addressed properly.

Interacting With Tomorrow's Self-Driving Cars

‍The future of self-driving cars is coming, now how do we handle that with our busy lives on the go? At the 2015 International CES, an automotive tech provider called Valeo presented new ways of interacting with the cars of our future. Valeo produced an adaptive information display and an InBlue smartphone/smartwatch virtual key tech. This tech will gage your vehicle’s fuel level, mileage, tire pressure, GPS location, and more, right onto your wrist. Valeo’s future plans are to deliver technology to operators of self-driving cars by adding a feature that can summon a Valet Park4U that would be nearby and have it arrive at the location specified. The supplier also claims that this smartphone virtual-key technology could assist in car-sharing services.

‍Marketing Strategy Insights

• Valeo technology could ease risks of injury or being stranded on the road by looking at your wrist device and knowing exactly what is going on with your vehicle.
• This technology can be integrated with existing wearables.
• The self-driving car market is already growing with technology integrations and companies looking to get a foothold in the emerging industry.