The Military’s Latest Wearables Can Detect Illness Two Days Before You Get Sick
September 23, 2020 01:00 PM ET
Some 400 troops are testing the devices, trained on nearly a quarter million cases to detect COVID and a whole lot more.
Some troops in the U.S. military are wearing a watch and ring kit that can alert them and their command if they’re going to get sick in the next day or two. It’s part of a new system that the Defense Innovation Unit, or DIU, has built with Philips Healthcare and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, or DTRA.
The watch and ring — by Garmin and Oura, respectively — are commercially available; they detect subtle biometric indicators, like slight changes in skin temperature. But a new algorithm, trained on Philips’ massive cache of patient bedside data, can analyze the data and predict whether the wearer will soon become ill from any of a wide variety of diseases, including COVID-19.
https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2020/09/militarys-latest-wearables-can-detect-illness-two-days-you-get-sick/168712/
