'Heart for Heart' is an app making use of the power of crowds to provide people with an effective at-home screening system for the most common heart rhythm disorder. The app is asking anyone — no matter their age, current health, or health history — to participate in a short screening test, and the data collected from these tests will be used to perfect the final at-home screening system that patients will eventually use.
Heart for Heart is designed to screen for atrial fibrillation, known more commonly as a-fib. According to Heart for Heart's website, there are as many as three million a-fib patients in the US alone and the condition leads to 250,000 sudden deaths in the US annually, making it the second-leading cause of stroke. Clearly, an initiative like Heart for Heart is an important one.
What's Driving This Trend
- Crowdsourced Screening Technology
- Opportunity for companies to create apps that crowdsource important health data to improve at-home screening systems for common health conditions.
- Personalized Health Monitoring
- Potential for apps to use individual health data to provide users with personalized health monitoring and screening.
- Wearables for Health Tracking
- Opportunity for companies to develop wearable devices that can track and monitor health data for conditions like a-fib.
Who This Affects Most
- Healthcare
- Healthcare professionals can incorporate crowdsourced data in developing personalized health monitoring and screening programs for their patients.
- Mobile App Development
- Opportunity for mobile app developers to create apps that use individual health data for health monitoring and screening purposes.
- Wearable Technology
- Companies making wearable technology can develop devices that monitor and track health data, urging users to take preventative measures by going to the doctor.
