Trust is the cornerstone of all relationships. It is one of the most important components of our personal and professional lives, and crucial within the realm of healthcare. The General Medical Council states “Patients must be able to trust doctors with their lives and health, and that trust in the health care professional is the foundation for effective treatment.” 1 But it takes another kind of trust to ensure the treatments themselves are effective, trust in data.
Research data is often gathered by utilizing self-reporting as a research tool. However, it is challenging to trust and verify the accuracy of self-reported information. Although self-report measures are easy to obtain and inexpensive, they are notoriously inflated and inaccurate.2 Unfortunately, some people mistake or misremember simple events in life, while others may fail to report answers honestly. This generates a problem for research as well as practice. Blindly accepting self-reporting data as reliable information can demonstrate a poor correlation between the patient’s actual experience and reported medical findings.
However, innovation in technology is enabling researchers to collect reliable and verifiable data in real time. Perigon Health 360, a leading digital health company, is demonstrating the power of data that can be gleaned by connecting actual patient adherence with a digitally tracked biomarker.
The company conducted a study to measure participant sleep quality related to a sleep supplement, and the impact of verified user compliance compared with self-reported information. To accurately measure compliance, Perigon Health 360 utilized their patented medication dispenser to track real-time patient usage data. This transparency into participant behavior verified that only 64% of participants were following dosing protocols.
Furthermore, it was identified that self-reported information drastically altered study results. Specifically, Total Minutes of REM Sleep was reported to have improved by 8% for all participants claiming to follow dosing protocols, compared to 16% for those participants that were actually compliant.3 By eliminating non-compliant subjects from the data set, REM sleep improvement increased by an overwhelming 100%. These significant findings could have been materially understated if researchers were only able to analyze unobservable data provided by self-reporting measures.
Using digital devices that track real-time metrics provides researchers access to accurate user data and high-quality health statistics leading to better health information. With the development of multiple digital health devices, Perigon Health 360 is at the forefront of improving the quality of research data necessary to create solid health-based evidence and research conclusions. These efforts are making meaningful changes to positively impact the drug making process and provide well-informed decisions regarding the care of individual patients and population health. The future of reliable, verifiable healthcare is here.
Sources:
1. The Science of Self-Report – Association for Psychological Science – APS.
2. Chronic Disease Compliance Instrument; Kyngas, Skaar-Chandler, & Duffy.
3. Perigon Health Tespo Sleep Research Study, 2019.
To receive a copy of this white paper, please email Genese Hendrickson, Chief Business Officer at Perigon Health 360, at Genese@perigonhealth.com
