​"We've never collected electrocardiogram (ECG) data from the heart for this long before. If we monitor this data in real time, accumulate it, and analyze it with artificial intelligence, it will become a tremendous asset."

These words come from Young Juhn, CEO of Wellysis, a wearable ECG monitoring patch company. Established in May of last year as a spin-off from Samsung SDS, the company is expanding the use of ECG monitoring from hospitals to everyday life settings. Samsung SDS developed the device by incorporating Samsung Electronics' bio processor to drive its digital health business forward. Unlike the traditional Holter monitors used for decades for ECG monitoring, which require wearing a device on the body for 24 to 48 hours, wearable patches are the size of a coin and weigh only 8 grams. With an internal battery, they can be used for up to 100 hours and, if the battery is replaced, can last up to a month. This produces a different dimension of data from the quick health checkups that take only a few tens of seconds.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, this company is receiving global attention. It is being used for contactless diagnosis and rehabilitation of patients with arrhythmias, suspected cardiovascular diseases, and surgical patients in Europe, Southeast Asia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. Telemedicine companies are seeking such products to more accurately monitor patient conditions. Research projects aimed at understanding the prognosis of COVID-19 through various biosignals are also being undertaken by prestigious institutions like Stanford University and the Australian government.

Around the world, countries are expanding telemedicine while investing in remote monitoring using wearable devices. With concerns growing about COVID-19 becoming endemic, periodic outbreaks, or evolving into an entrenched epidemic, preparations are being made to adapt to living with the virus. By anticipating and responding to the signs of a second wave of COVID-19 in the coming fall or winter, potential damages can be minimized. Already, smartwatches, smart rings, and other wearable devices are being widely used for disease diagnosis, including COVID-19. They are expanding the role of medical devices from being limited within hospitals to wider medical applications.

Now is the time for us to prepare for the next data war to overcome COVID-19. We need to rethink our globally recognized "data strategy" in pandemic situations, including tracking and disclosing the movements of confirmed cases. We must arm ourselves with agility to keep up with the virus's transmission speed and mutational capabilities. Data accumulated during the treatment process of COVID-19 patients is already piling up in various medical fields, and new data is being produced every moment. By using wearable devices to understand the status of patients and the general population and integrating this accumulated data, we can change the system for monitoring and predicting infectious diseases.

Efforts by institutions like Stanford University and UCSF (University of California, San Francisco) are worth noting. Stanford University, including Wellysis, is collaborating with wearable device companies such as Apple Watch and Fitbit to start research on monitoring and predicting infectious diseases and other illnesses from this month. They plan to collect data such as heart rate, body temperature, and blood oxygen saturation to detect infectious diseases early and utilize them for monitoring and treatment. It is known that the heart rate increases in people infected with the virus. Stanford University also plans to apply related research to cancer patients, organ transplant recipients, and others. According to researchers at Stanford University, smartphones, which are closer to people than any other device, will become the most important health device in the future.

UCSF is collaborating with Oura Health, a smart ring company headquartered in San Francisco, to develop algorithms that identify patterns of COVID-19 onset, progression, and recovery using data collected from the rings. More than 40,000 people, including 3,000 medical professionals, are participating in the study, providing researchers with data on heart rate, physical activity, and body temperature.

When wearable devices are integrated into the medical ecosystem, significant changes can occur. In the current COVID-19 situation, companies developing vaccines, treatments, and diagnostic devices, as well as hospitals, will have powerful weapons in their hands. It is a completely different story to observe the body momentarily through diagnostic devices when visiting hospitals versus reading various physiological signals emitted by the body 24 hours a day. By analyzing this data, personalized disease prediction and precision medicine can become a reality. Real-time personalized healthcare services, similar to intelligent CCTV systems that identify criminals and security monitoring systems that detect hacking attacks in real time, become possible. It is a model that evolves one step further from meeting doctors through remote medicine. It is also an opportunity for the medical device industry, which lags behind in countries like the United States, Europe, and Japan, to leap forward.

It is regrettable that remote monitoring was excluded when the government temporarily allowed telemedicine in response to the COVID-19 situation. To properly respond to the next pandemic, we need to create a dense network of remote monitoring. It is time to push forward with agile strategic changes and long-term investments simultaneously.