Wearables won’t turn you into your own physician, but they are clearly helping people monitor their health and affecting healthcare. That’s the conclusion of a Northwestern University study. According to Digital Trends, the statistics are pretty remarkable:

. . . there exists a stunning 44-percent decrease in sick days for employees who don wearables on a daily basis. Experts estimate that if this trend should continue, over the next 25 years, wearables could help cut hospital costs by way of remote patient monitoring, saving the healthcare industry some $200 billion. Indeed, a three-year study of insurance company Humana shows that employees who use wearables have saved 18 percent on health care already.

Of course, there’s a caveat here – you have to wear your wearable technology. And right now, a lot of wearable technology ends up consigned to the back of a closet. At least 33%, though it may be considerably more.

But Americans also seem more ambivalent about the use of wearables in the workplace than their counterparts in other countries. Here’s the data from a 2014 workforce study:

The Northwestern project confirmed the privacy concerns with 82% worrying about an invasion of privacy and 86% thinking wearable technology could make us vulnerable to security breaches.

Wearables and Healthcare

What is interesting in the Northwestern University study is how wearables may affect the perception of our longevity,

. . . 46 percent of consumers believe wearable technology will help them lose weight and 56 percent of consumers believe wearable technology that monitors vital signs can increase the average life expectancy by 10 years.

The positive attitude that wearables bring to the process of aging may affect more than our general happiness. A January 2016 study, “Negative Perceptions of Aging Modify the Association Between Frailty and Cognitive Function in Older Adults,” published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences concluded,

Everyone will grow older and if negative attitudes towards aging are carried throughout life they can have a detrimental, measurable effect on mental, physical and cognitive health.

The study suggested that a positive outlook had a greater impact on physical and mental condition than other factors. That sense of control a Fitbit or Smartwatch gives you could be more important than the actual number of calories it tracks.

Remote Monitoring

The impact of wearables may expand in the healthcare profession as patients are provided with medical devices. Juniper Research estimates that some $36 billion a year will be saved by 2018 through remote monitoring of patients.