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Op-Ed: Comcast joins tech race to monitor your health. How invasive will it be?

Image by Msporch from Pixabay

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Tired of managing your own health choices? Soon you’ll be able to let Comcast do it for you. If that sounds strange to you, don’t worry, it’s not the first company to offer this type of service and hardware. Apple has been testing health-tracking through its Apple Watch, Google is targeting senior living facilities with its Nest and Google Home products, and Amazon has been working on its own secretive initiatives.

The idea is pretty simple. Comcast will offer a device that monitors and assists senior citizens or disabled persons by determining when it is time for a health checkup – or in some cases – an emergency room visit. The device is not intended to do things like Alexa or Siri do with ordering products, providing search capabilities, or assistance with scheduling daily tasks. Its sole purpose, at a very basic level, is to monitor your activity patterns, detect falls, and call for medical help if it determines you need it.

Comcast already has internet and television equipment in homes and facilities across the country, so this is a logical move. The company will simply provide this new health service as an add-on. While it may seem incredibly invasive to some, many people will be eager to utilize this service while being ignorant to the security and privacy risks involved.

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Comments

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  • Avatar
    Mason

    Nice psychology approach - however, when my daughter first got sucked into the away from home college circus, she didn't really care. Instagram frenzy that first year in college - long story - now she is home and doing great. Mom and dad had to clamp down hard.

  • Avatar
    Wilson G

    I'm going to have to go with "no" on this one. Let's be real here, it's not a privacy issue. It's a personal responsibility issue. That is: Are you personally responsible enough to see a doctor for routine checkups and when you get sick or injured? If not, well that's on you. Old people worried about falls already have LifeAlert. They don't need a FitBit style device monitoring everything about them and reporting it to a database. This is nothing more than subcontracting out your own personal responsibility to do something your doctor's office will call you repeatedly about anyway.

  • Avatar
    Joy B

    There is two huge benefit to the healthcare data (diagnosis codes, CPT codes, prescription drugs, etc) that Health Insurers collect- they can analyze trends and see where there are issues that can be prevented in populations and the data can be stripped of PHI to show the witless wonders in Congress and Senate why we need laws back to regulate the cost healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies charge. BCBS of IL and Humana, especially Humana Gold, have invested a lot of time and money to work with prevention of diseases, even mental health, and I know doctors who grudgingly admitted that it helps them and their patients. As for letting Comcast get their mitts into any healthcare monitoring? Run like hell in the opposite direction.

  • Avatar
    Andy T

    I have gone the opposite route. I've made it clear that it's possible that we (and pretty much anyone) can know everything they are doing with their phones, but have refrained from actually doing it. Risky and it's made my hair gray.

  • Avatar
    Mason

    I shred our health providers metrics, blow the tail end of the 6 sigma curve off. I get absolutely no extra benefits or discounts for it. Healthy Living, and the monitoring that is done by our wellness provider is just more data for big Insurance to modify policies and maximize their profit. I don't really see any concrete programs come out of our wellness provider - I do see our HR department and folks who work with the wellness provider trying to leverage some good for folks enrolled, but nothing really substantive, from the provider in real actionable on the ground healthy assistance programs.