Allscripts, Garmin launch pilot on wearables for population health

To help clinicians better manage patient care, Garmin will join with Allscripts to integrate its vívofit suite of wearable devices into the FollowMyHealth and CareInMotion platforms, designed to address specific population health management priorities.

Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Mass., will serve as the beta site and identify a specific patient population to wear vívofit devices and use the Index Smart Scale. Through an integration with FollowMyHealth, Berkshire Medical will receive updated, real-time data about the patient between office and hospital visits, improving patient monitoring and facilitating informed decisions about patient care.

“This technology will give our care managers a clearer view into their patients’ health status between visits,” Bill Young, Berkshire Medical Center Chief Information Officer, said. “We expect to demonstrate improvements in patient engagement and monitoring for patients, as well as more efficient workflows for our providers.”

“For consumer-generated health data to be useful to providers, it must be integrated with clinical data,” Martha Thorne, Allscripts senior vice president of population health, said in a release. “Our strategic relationship with Garmin will effectively integrate the information for providers at Berkshire Medical Center.”