SAN FRANCISCO — Google parent company Alphabet announced on Friday it will buy Fitbit for $2.1 billion — a massive deal that will pit Google squarely against Apple in the market for health and fitness tracking.
The deal immediately transforms the market for fitness trackers and smartwatches, which are increasingly being seen as clinical tools for monitoring health and gathering reams of health data.
Just a note-I have commented on the FitBit blog 3 times (well, tried to)that I was less than thrilled that Google was acquiring FitBit because of Google’s penchant for selling people’s info and I was deleting my account. None of my comments were there. I did not use profanity, threats, etc. I was being censured for stating an opinion that was not popular with FitBit/Google. Just be aware that the there is talk of using your personal stats to limit medical insurance coverage based on the data provided by your health/steps monitor (like a FitBit). That’s pretty scary.
WHERE is there talk of limiting medical insc from data on monitoring devices???on
WHO discussed this??
I, of course, would NEVER want my personal health info in the hands of anyone that would use it for manipulation (financial or otherwise) of any aspect of my life.
If I made such broad accusations (such as the “HAD been discussion of using ones health info to limit insc” the sort of things you intimated were being discussed, I would hope you could provide examples of conversation that showed just that discussion – or at least LINKS to said discussions. I would certainly be interested!!
As far as my ANONYMOUS ‘data’ being used for any sort of research – i’m all for that …..
I have worn a couple different devices the last 5 or so (maybe more?) years in a self-directed effort to try and avoid the eventual health and activity decline that seems to pretty much be an inevitable consequence of aging.
The last device was a Fitbit- and i currently have well over a years worth of heart rate data and ‘general estimation’ of my cardiac ‘fitness’ so to speak.
After not having any health insurance for 3-4 years, i finally reached mandatory Medicare, got myself a nice medigap policy, and took up my healthcare concerns where i left off years previous. One of the ‘issues’ i had had was a persistently high (low 200s) total cholesterol/ borderline good HDL and borderline bad LDL values – inspite of 40 mg Atorvastatin daily and omega 3s fish oil. Altho i must say i have not cut meat out of my diet. Picking up at the cardiologists where i left off, he had wanted a carotid US to check for plaque deposits. With my now functional policies, i agreed to have the test. Altho i was a never smoker, i did have the chronic midlife obesity now, diabetes hx in family, heart conditions hx in family (mostly due to diabetes) i was curious what the inside of my arteries did look like as a negative outcome would have been the motivator for me to stick to diet restructuring.
The test revealed my pipes were clean as a whistle – no plaque.
Dr came back in and started lecturing me that i needed to exercise much more/get a handle on my weight and eat better. I decided to show him my Fitbit activity/heart rate information (which reflects the fact that my average step count runs between 10,000 – 15,000 steps a day when i work and between 8-10,000 when i am just home caring for / riding/driving my THREE horses. My heart rate is in ‘fat burning mode’ for a good part of the day/ my RESTING heart rate is in the lower 50s, and the Fitbit cardiovascular evaluation for a woman my age has me way into the ‘green’/excellent value – inspite of my comorbid obesity.
(and YES I absolutely know and have been trying to alter my diet calorically for 10 years now – to try and lose my midlife midbody expansion – an uphill battle at best it seems)
But the point was the Dr barely acknowledged the data! Like i was trying to show him some late-night infomercial crackpot solution or something. Kept insisting i needed to exercise more…..
I wear my Fitbit 24/7/365 – i do that for COMPLETENESS of information – both good AND bad! Truth is in the numbers – numbers dont lie.
And he did not even sniff at the wealth of potential objective, diagnostic information.
Just gave me the same ol’ schpeal everyone else gets.
I am NOT everyone else and i look at that as a missed opportunity to assist me in getting healthier…
Me, i look forward to this ‘integration’ – i would gladly download my fitbit info to my cardiologist/pcp/ and whoever else had an interest in seeing it…
Anyways, the struggle is real, and i continue it on a day to day basis😉.
@Barb Elliot
Here is one article to which I became alerted to the possibility
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-02-17/could-fitbit-data-be-used-to-deny-health-insurance-coverage
I didn’t say they were doing it, but it’s obviously being bandied about. I for one, am not going to wait until it becomes a reality. I am being proactive.
Hope it all works out for you.