Gunnarsdottir, Kristrun and Dijk, Niels van and Fotopoulou, Aristea and Guimarães Pereira, Ângela and O'Riordan, Kate and Rommetveit, Kjetil and Vesnic-Alujevic, Lucia (2015) Gadgets on the move and in stasis : consumer and medical electronics, what's the difference? (summary of findings and policy recommendations). [Report]
Abstract
This document provides a set of policy recommendations, based on the findings of a three-year long case study on wearable sensors. The key objective was to assess state-of-the-art developments in this domain of innovation, using evaluation and analytic methods that correspond with the expertise and experience available on our study team and among our associates in industry and innovation, medicine, policy, grass roots activism, STS and ELS study traditions. Our aim is to provide guidelines for good governance of wearable sensors, in light of their potential roles in medical settings as well as their currency as consumer electronics for quasi-medical purposes. We provide recommendations for ongoing innovation in this field, considering the necessity of mutual recognition and reflexive knowledge exchange among innovators and industrial actors, medical expertise, scholarly and technical assessments, patient organisations and grass roots activism, policy developers and regulators.