Institute For The Future

More on the quantification of oneself

I mentioned the other day the idea of the quantified self. While doing some research for Health Care 2020, I came across a journal article that discussed quantified self-tracking in the context of emerging patient-driven health care models. Author Melanie Swan answers the question I often struggle with: Why do people self-monitor?

An underlying assumption for many self-trackers is that data is an objective resource that can bring visibility, information and action to a situation quickly, and psychologically there may be an element of empowerment and control. Quantified self-tracking is being applied . . . [in] the health context, where the expanded definition of health is embraced as applications address both medical issues and general wellness objectives.

We already have seen the emergence of health-based social networks (examples: PatientsLikeMe, CureTogether, MedHelp, SugarStats) that offer the ability to collect one's quantified self-tracking data. Other websites make available visualization tools and the ability to share datasets (examples: IBM’s ManyEyes, Swivel, and FlowingData). The next development beyond self-tracking websites and devices are wearable devices that offer automated data collection via USB or Bluetooth connectivity. I am particularly fascinated by such devices, and have blogged about them before.

Melanie goes on to suggest that an evolving health care delivery model will likely involve the patient becoming:

more of an informed participant, an active responsibility-taker, the owner, administrator and coordinator of his or her health program and health data. Future interactions may be those of knowledgeable patients bringing quantitative reports from their self-testing and self-tracking activities to medical professionals for consultative co-interpretation of the results.

Alexandra Carmichael, founder of CureTogether (mentioned above), reports that she tracks more than 40 different categories of information about her health and personal habits. (A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal included Alexandra in an article about self-trackers.)

Do you keep track of your blood pressure? your weight? your daily caloric intake? your moods? Would devices that make these tracking efforts easier mean you would be more inclined to do so? And how comfortable would you be walking in to your doctor's office with a graph of your self-monitored information?

(By the way, you can read the abstract and download a free PDF file of Melanie Swan's article, "Emerging Patient-Driven Health Care Models: An Examination of Health Social Networks, Consumer Personalized Medicine and Quantified Self-Tracking," here.)