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In the age of smartphones, personal portable devices give everyone the ability to diagnose an illness, as we’ve reported in articles such as “Doctor in Your Hand” (23 Sep 2015) and “Cough, Cough…Your Doctor is on the Phone” (19 Jul 2017).
That trend has been evolving. Now, after COVID, it’s exploding.
“All of a sudden, home diagnostics and home testing became a thing,” Amy Beckley, CEO of MFB Fertility, told The Wall Street Journal.
Beckley’s company has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to offer Proov, its test to let women read their hormone levels for 20 consecutive days and see when they’re most likely to become pregnant.
Medical Electronics Systems makes an app-based test to tell men what their fertility levels are and instructs them to see a physician if their results aren’t within a normal range. Other companies are prepping at-home test kits for flu and strep throat.
Before the COVID era, many medical and public health professionals hesitated to embrace home diagnostics, fearing that too many people would be unable to interpret results properly.
COVID changed many of those minds, the WSJ said.
“COVID has paved the way for home testing,” Nitika Pai, professor of medicine at McGill University, said to the WSJ.
While many people still prefer the security of being tested by a physician or technician in a doctor’s office, Quest Diagnostics finds an increasing interest among patients to check their conditions at home, Cathy Doherty, Quest’s chief of consumer testing, told The Journal.
“We think there’s room for both,” she added.
TREND FORECAST: The market for home tests will flourish as tests become easier to use and interpret and as visits to doctors’ offices become more expensive. Insurance companies likely will begin to cover the cost of more home tests that otherwise would require a trip to a clinic.