With record waiting lists and rising sick leave, Sir Keir Starmer has made it a priority to get the NHS “back on its feet and future-proof”; He focused on finding technology that could help “catch and prevent problems earlier.” .

From weight-loss vaccines to revamped NHS rollout, it is hoped early interventions could reduce the burden on the healthcare service. Health Minister Wes Streeting also believes devices and wearable technologies could move more patients from hospital beds into the community.

Labor hopes to make millions of connected health devices available to patients as part of its 10-year NHS plan. In addition wrist-worn fitness trackers and smartwatchesHealth monitoring digital rings could soon become another tool to improve the daily health of the British population.

It’s a future that, unsurprisingly, Tom Hale, chief executive of Oura, which developed the popular Oura Ring, can buy into.

“I believe in the idea that healthcare can use wearables for things like preventative care and post-intervention monitoring,” he says.

“I personally think it was a really smart move. It was definitely our vision that wearables were an important part of the population health solution.”

The Finnish company’s smart rings were first introduced via a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 and are easily spotted as a piece of jewelry that looks like a large silver, gold or brushed metal wedding ring. Hale wears two.

But they are full of technology. LEDs monitor your blood oxygen, infrared sensors track your heart rate, and the temperature monitor measures body temperature; It’s all connected to a smartphone app that monitors your health day and night. A long-lasting battery will last more than a week.

Oura claims that these trackers can provide an accurate picture of key aspects of your health and receive signals that are even more detailed than smartwatches.

“This part of the human body and this form factor is really useful for 24-hour monitoring,” Hale says of a finger. “There is an artery that runs about 2 mm under your skin. “You see the circulation on the front end.”

Until now, these devices have been the preserve of celebrities and Silicon Valley elites; There were fans including the Duke of Sussex, Cristiano Ronaldo and the Duke of Sussex. england football team. With the latest Oura Ring 4 having a £349 price tag, they’ve become a status symbol for fitness fanatics or wellness gurus.

“People ask us all the time if we pay these high-profile people,” Hale says. “There’s not enough money in the world to pay these people to wear your product. “We are quite lucky.”

Oura’s ring is not a medical device with regulatory approval, although it may receive that approval in the future. “We want to offer clinical-grade sensors in the consumer package,” Hale says.

Yet NHS trusts are starting to explore how its technology could be used. Experts at the University of Manchester NHS Foundation Trust are testing whether these rings could be used to remotely monitor the vital signs of people being treated for cancer, providing a 24/7 data stream.

Another NHS study plans to recruit 500 women to wear Oura rings to test the effect of hormone replacement therapy on women during menopause.

Oura isn’t the only company developing digital rings that claim to improve their users’ well-being. This summer, Samsung released the Galaxy Ring, a sleep tracker that connects to smartphones.

Meanwhile, Apple has filed for several patents related to smart rings, but Bloomberg reported in February that it is not actively developing such a device despite the popularity of the Apple Watch.

The government hopes wearable devices will soon be more widely available on the NHS.

“Access to this type of technology should not be restricted to those who can afford it,” says Hale. “Everyone already has one of these – a cell phone – something everyone should have (a smart ring) that streams data about their physiology.”

Oura says its ring could allow users to check in-depth data in a smartphone app, including heart rate, sleep detection and interruption, temperature and other features like fertility information and period tracking. Most often, its rings are used for sleep tracking, and its app provides a “sleep score” that tracks REM and deep sleep.

Rebecca Robbins, a sleep scientist at Brigham Women’s Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School who advises Oura, said the data the ring collects has the “highest sensitivity for deep sleep detection” compared to competing devices and is “second only to the gold standard.” says. laboratory equipment, according to a study published in the journal Sensors.

He adds that technology can be a “powerful motivator for health behavior change,” such as encouraging people to avoid alcohol or smartphone screens before bed.

Features like this will appeal to fitness fanatics or the health-conscious, but Oura says its rings could go even further and act to provide preventative health information that can alert people if they get sick.

A study funded by Oura found that its ring could detect potential Covid-19 symptoms up to two days before infection was confirmed. Its newest rings can also track cardiovascular age and cardio capacity, and the company says they can provide “valuable data for patient care, clinical evaluations and research studies, as well as sports teams and athletes.”

The company hasn’t shied away from the hype around artificial intelligence (AI) and added Oura Adviser, a new digital assistant that will provide users with wellness tips based on readings from the app.

Oura’s rings come with a price, of course. Apart from the upfront cost, Oura fans are expected to part ways with a £5.99 monthly subscription. The company’s decision to add a monthly subscription to its already costly subscription in 2021 disappointed some customers, as many core features were useless without a fee.

The paper, published in the Oura-funded journal Sensors, acknowledged that although the devices performed at a level comparable to lab-based sleep trackers, their costs “remain high and out of reach for many people.”

Still, the market is quite large. The company expects to make a turnover of around $500 million (£385 million) next year and says it has sold a total of 2.5 million rings. Investors valued the business at $2.5 billion.

Despite its high costs, wearable technology “will provide broader benefits to society at large and reduce costs for healthcare systems,” says Hale.

“The Covid example is perfect,” he adds. “Can we discover whether someone is potentially a disease vector before their symptoms appear?”

With a combination of a smartphone and a digital ring, these devices can act “like a general practitioner in your pocket looking at you, not just seeing you for 15 minutes once a year,” says Hale.

Oura, which is rapidly growing in popularity among American celebrities, is now targeting the UK as its next big market. There is “a huge focus on the UK,” says Hale.

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