RTI International and digital health integration platform Validic has teamed up to optimize consumer wearable and health sensor data for clinical research. As part of the partnership, RTI and Validic will work together to better understand how teenagers’ health, social experience, genetic profile and living situation affect their health and behavior later in life.
Once Validic validates and delivers patient-recorded data from wearable devices like Fitbit, RTI will leverage the information – and other health behaviors – for research on health and wellness.
Beyond providing wearers their daily step-count, these popular devices offer researchers a new way to collect data including level of physical activity, sleep, heart rate and other health indicators. RTI and Validic will work to ensure this data is optimized for rigorous clinical health research.
“Relatively little is known about the validity and reliability of consumer devices and there has not been much work done to pair large samples of these data with other, more traditional sources, like survey responses and clinical records,” said Robert Furberg, Ph.D., senior clinical informaticist at RTI and co-author of a study on the reliability and accuracy of activity trackers. “We’re in an unusually good position to help researchers access, appreciate and analyze the output from this new generation of data collection instruments.”
The Validic platform enables personal health information from wearable trackers, smartphone applications and in-home clinical devices to be securely captured, standardized and delivered to clients’ systems. By streamlining access to nearly 400 different connected devices – such as Fitbit, Jawbone, Omron, Withings, MyFitnessPal – Validic is helping the industry shift from managing symptoms to better diagnosing and treating conditions.
“The nature of chronic disease is often intrinsically related to lifestyle decisions,” said Validic CEO and Co-Founder Drew Schiller in a statement. “Real-time, real-world data that can be captured in patients’ daily lives is a powerful tool to optimize clinical research and care delivery. Effective interoperability is key to having valid data captured in a consistent manner that will allow it to be a reliable part of both prevention and treatment. We are excited to have RTI join our client ecosystem along with leading hospitals, health systems, pharma, wellness organizations and healthcare technology companies.”
