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Review
. 2024 Feb 6;83(5):611-631.
doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2023.11.024.

Promises and Perils of Consumer Mobile Technologies in Cardiovascular Care: JACC Scientific Statement

Niraj Varma  1 , Janet K Han  2 , Rod Passman  3 , Lindsey Anne Rosman  4 , Hamid Ghanbari  5 , Peter Noseworthy  6 , Jennifer N Avari Silva  7 , Abhishek Deshmukh  6 , Prashanthan Sanders  8 , Gerhard Hindricks  9 , Gregory Lip  10 , Arun R Sridhar  11
Affiliations
Free article
Review

Promises and Perils of Consumer Mobile Technologies in Cardiovascular Care: JACC Scientific Statement

Niraj Varma et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. .
Free article

Abstract

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) wearables are becoming increasingly popular in cardiovascular health management because of their affordability and capability to capture diverse health data. Wearables may enable continuous health care provider-patient partnerships and reduce the volume of episodic clinic-based care (thereby reducing health care costs). However, challenges arise from the unregulated use of these devices, including questionable data reliability, potential misinterpretation of information, unintended psychological impacts, and an influx of clinically nonactionable data that may overburden the health care system. Further, these technologies could exacerbate, rather than mitigate, health disparities. Experience with wearables in atrial fibrillation underscores these challenges. The prevalent use of D2C wearables necessitates a collaborative approach among stakeholders to ensure effective integration into cardiovascular care. Wearables are heralding innovative disease screening, diagnosis, and management paradigms, expanding therapeutic avenues, and anchoring personalized medicine.

Keywords: atrial fibrillation; comorbidities; consumer wearables; digital medicine; mHealth; remote monitoring.

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Conflict of interest statement

Funding Support and Author Disclosures Dr Varma has served as a consultant for and has received speaker fees from Abbott, Biotronik, Boston Scientific, EP Solutions, Implicity, Impulse Dynamics, Medtronic, and Pacemate. Dr Han has served as a consultant for Medtronic and iRhythm. Dr Passman has served as a consultant to Medtronic, Abbott, iRhythm, and Janssen; has received research support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), The American Heart Association (AHA), Abbott, and Apple; and has received royalties from UpToDate. Dr Rosman has received grants from the NIH with the National Heart, Lung, and Bood Institute (NHLBI), Pfizer, and Biotronik. Dr Ghanbari has served as a consultant for Verily, Johnson & Johnson, BSC, and Huxley. Dr Noseworthy has received research funding from NIH, including the National Institute on Aging (grant R01AG 062436-1), and from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (grant FD 06292); together with Mayo Clinic has filed patents related to the application of artificial intelligence to the electrocardiogram (ECG) for diagnosis and risk stratification and has licensed several A-ECG algorithms to Anumana; and together with Mayo Clinic is involved in a potential equity/royalty relationship with AliveCor. Dr Silva has been a co-founder of BOD Sentiar (IP licensed from Wash University to Sentiar) and a co-founder of Excera (IP licensed from Wash University to Excera); has served as a consultant to Abbott, MDT, Janssen, and BOD-MedVR; and has received research support from AliveCor, Biosense, and Abbott. Dr Deshmukh has served as a consultant for GE healthcare. Dr Sanders has served as a consultant for and has received research grants from Medtronic, Abbott Medical, Boston Scientific, CathRx, Pacemate, and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. Dr Hindricks has served as a consultant for Biosense and Boston Scientific that involve payment to Heart Center Leipzig. Dr Lip has served as a consultant and speaker for Bristol Myers Squibb/Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Daiichi-Sankyo, and Anthos, with no fees received personally; and has served as co-principal investigator of the AFFIRMO project on multimorbidity in atrial fibrillation, which has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 899871. Dr Sridhar has reported a relationship with AliveCor.

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