Digital Phenotype Could Change Healthcare

A new editorial in Nature Biotech poses the idea of the “digital phenotype” as a catch-all term for the trail of relevant health data people leave behind in their interactions with the internet, social media, and technology, which has largely untapped potential for the early detection of various conditions.

CareMore Chief Medical Officer Sachin Jain, MD, submitted the paper along with Harvard Medical School colleagues Brian Powers, an MD candidate, Jared Hawkins, PhD, and John Brownstein, PhD, whose Computational Epidemiology Group has done a lot of work in the area of digital phenotyping already.

“People are increasingly leaving a footprint of their health status through technology, including social media, forums, online communities, wearable technologies, and mobile devices,” Dr Jain said in a statement. “This information all has clinical value to a physician. The challenge is being aware of it and knowing how to access and interpret it.”

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