Medidata, Garmin Hone in on mHealth

By Michael Essany  /  mHealthWatch

Medidata, Garmin Hone in on mHealth

With the potential of mHealth technology in their line of sight, Medidata and Garmin are teaming up to provide consumers with an enhanced mHealth solution.

Medidata, a global provider of cloud-based solutions, is collaborating with Garmin by integrating Garmin’s vívofit activity tracker with the Medidata Clinical Cloud.

Thanks to the coupling, Medidata is enabling its life sciences customers to make use of mobile health devices with the potential to enhance patient engagement, data quality and operational efficiencies in clinical trials.

Designed to be worn on a person’s wrist 24/7, Garmin’s vívofit measures steps taken, distance, calories burned and hours slept. The water-resistant device—which displays fitness data through its always-on LCD display—is being used by Medidata to capture patient data in clinical trials. The company selected the vívofit because of the ease of use provided by its year-long battery life, which can improve the convenience and speed associated with capturing direct-from-patient data and, as such, has the potential to increase compliance among study participants in a clinical trial setting.

Sources at Garmin have expressed excitement that Medidata is turning to vívofit in their pursuit to “help the global life sciences industry find better, easier ways to collect data directly from patients.”

Glen de Vries, Medidata’s president, says that integrating the vívofit with the Medidata platform is “part of our ongoing efforts to unify mHealth devices with cloud-based technologies in a clinical trial setting.”

“We believe these efforts will result in better data, enhanced patient experiences and more efficient trials,” de Vries adds.