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Hailed as the future of preventive care, wearable health devices allow doctors to keep closer tabs on the health of patients as they go about their daily routines.

But as health systems consider these medical-grade devices, hoping to lower costs associated with hospital readmissions, they have also raised concerns about potential security risks to patients and to the hospitals connected with them.

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Doctors who champion wearables believe the disruptive devices can chip away at the costs of chronic care — which are responsible for 86 percent of the nation’s $2.7 trillion in health care spending — and help keep patients out of hospitals. However, these clinical wearables add a new wrinkle of security risk for health systems nationwide on top of the 112 million patient records missing, stolen, or improperly disclosed in 2015.

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