Why Apple HealthKit And Google Fit Don't Matter (For Now)

This article was written by HourlyNerd's Andy Muller.

Don’t get me wrong: Healthkit and Google Inc GOOGL Fit are a good sign for the industry in general. That said, I don’t think that we’ll start to see them make much of an impact for a few years. Here are the four reasons why, in no particular order:

The Prevailing Healthcare Business Model Is Still Sick-Care

ACOs and bundled payments – elements that will start to shift the healthcare business model toward pre-emptive care, away from fee for service, and will thus make the value proposition of Healthkit and Google Fit more valuable – are coming, but they won’t be a significant part of the market for a couple of years. (1)

Development Times Are Long

Yes, Epic and Mayo are working on software that will leverage Healthkit and Google Fit (2), but development and testing times are long, and even if the FDA is scaling back its involvement in Healthcare IT, I imagine that the software in question will fall under the outstanding question mark of how the government agency will handle clinical decision support (3). My guess is late 2015 or even 2016 before this software is actually rolled out.

Most Wearables Are Left On The Shelf After A Few Months

It probably goes without saying, but if there’s no data (or insufficient data) to aggregate, then there’s little value in a platform that aggregates it. And as Rock Health recently reported (4), most wearables simply aren’t useful enough for consumers to keep wearing them even after a few months. Until wearable companies make their devices a “don’t leave home without it” item, Healthkit and Google Fit won’t have much work to do. There is, of course, the possibility that the existence of Healthkit and Google Fit will make wearables more useful, but that will take some time to play out.

Certainly, some will suggest that the new smartwatches herald a new era, but I’m skeptical in the near term. A recent Wall Street Journal review of the Motorola Moto 360 smartwatch (5) said that battery life was so dismal that the author had to charge it two times per day. Apple Inc. AAPL is sure to have sorted that out with their watch, but it will be a long time before the masses have adopted that new product, if the adoption rate and current market penetration of the iPhone are any indication.

Doctors Aren’t Going To Look At Your Data

This reason has strong ties into the others, but currently, most doctors don’t have time or incentive enough to look at your data right now. Obviously things can (and will, over time) change, but with reimbursements down, many doctors are seeing more patients than they can handle even now. Furthermore, if the data continues to tell such useful stories as “how many steps you took on Monday and Tuesday before you stopped wearing your device for the week”, I don’t know why they’d look even if they had the time. And let’s not even begin to wonder what the liability implications might be for doctors that do (or don’t) look at your data might be.

Conclusion

Don’t get me wrong – I still think that HealthKit and Fit will have a big impact in a few years, and am bullish on companies that resolve the rampant data silo issues in HIT. But because of the issues raised above, in the near term I’m betting analytics companies solve the problems in the business data, rather than in consumer wearable data.