Despite the ongoing scrutiny of its heart rate and sleep data accuracy, Fitbit’s fitness trackers are proving to be pretty useful for a whole host of clinical trials.
The major wearable tech player, along with research platform Fitabase, has been changing the way medical research is being conducted with institutions including Johns Hopkins University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center among those who have chosen to tap into data from Fitbit users around the world.
According to Fitabase, it has collected over 2 billion minutes of physical data over four years on behalf of research customers. That’s a whole lot of data.
“Historically, measuring participants’ activity, sleep, and heart rate data over significant periods of time has been logistically difficult to collect and costly to measure,” said Aaron Coleman, CEO of Fitabase. “Fitbit’s consumer-friendly technology provides our customers with an accurate, meaningful way to capture 24/7, real-time data so they can design innovative study protocols in ways not possible before.”
