By Jessica Hill, Associated Press
The health tech gadgets showcased at the annual CES show make a lot of promise. A smart scale promotes a healthier lifestyle by scanning your feet to track your heart health, and an egg-shaped hormone tracker uses AI to help you determine the best time to conceive.
Technology and health experts, however, question the accuracy of products like these and warn of data privacy concerns, especially as the federal government relaxes regulations.
The Food and Drug Administration announced at the Las Vegas show that it would ease regulations on “low-risk” general wellness products, such as heart monitors and wheelchairs. It’s the latest step by President Donald Trump’s administration to remove barriers to innovation and the use of AI. The White House rescinded former President Joe Biden’s executive order establishing guardrails around AI, and last month the Department of Health and Human Services outlined its strategy to expand its use of AI.
Conference booths showcased new technologies designed to help people living in rural areas meet their health care needs amid doctor shortages, spur research into women’s health, and make life easier for people with disabilities.
AI technologies have benefits in the more than $4.3 trillion healthcare industry, according to Marschall Runge, a professor of medical sciences at the University of Michigan. They are good at analyzing medical imaging and can help streamline doctors’ busy schedules, Runge said, but they can also promote bias and “hallucinate,” providing incorrect information presented as fact.
“I urge people not to think of technology as being the same thing as a well-resourced, thoughtful, research-driven healthcare professional,” said Cindy Cohn, executive director of the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Privacy protections such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act do not cover information collected by consumer devices, and companies could use the data to train their AI models or sell it to other companies, Cohn said.
With so many gadgets at CES, it’s hard to know where your information is going, Cohn said.
“You have to dig into the fine print to try to understand that, and I just don’t think it’s fair or correct for people who might rely on it,” she said.
But the products’ creators say their innovations fill gaps in health care and say they protect their customers’ privacy.
Sylvia Kang, founder and CEO of Mira, said she created the egg-shaped hormone tracker because many of her friends were trying to conceive and realized they had no knowledge about their hormonal health. To use the “Mini Global Hormone Lab,” you dip a wand in urine, insert it into the monitor, and watch the results on the app.
Kang said his company uses AI to analyze data on female hormones and has one of the largest hormonal health banks in the world. The data is stored on the cloud and is not shared with anyone, Kang said.
“This didn’t exist before,” Kang said of his $250 product.
Many of the gadgets showcased at CES focused on women’s health, a historically understudied and underfunded area. Before 1993, women were excluded from clinical trials and there is still little research into areas like menopause.
Although not all women will have children, all women go through menopause, and “yet we don’t know about it,” Amy Divaraniya, founder and CEO of women’s health company Oova, said in a session.
A gadget called Peri aims to better understand perimenopause – the transition phase before menopause. The wearable device monitors hot flashes and night sweats and provides the data via an app.
Improving accessibility to health care
Other CES products have been promoted as a way to increase accessibility to health information. The free, medically focused AI chatbot, called 0xmd, helps improve access to medical information in areas experiencing doctor shortages and is a cost-effective alternative, said its founder and architect Allen Au. People can ask the chatbot questions about medicine, upload photos of a mole or rash, and submit their doctor’s notes for an easier-to-understand translation, Au said.
“Ultimately, I don’t think we’ll replace doctors,” but it may give people a second opinion, Au said.
OpenAI announced the launch of ChatGPT Health, a similar platform, on Wednesday.
Cohn remains skeptical of consumer technology. She said they can help prepare people to ask the right questions of their healthcare provider, but they won’t replace a doctor.
“People need to remember that these are just tools; they are not oracles that deliver truths,” she said.