Industry news roundup: week ended 24 Nov 2014:
Just when you thought you’ve heard it all: it turns out that data from one of those fitness trackers is going to play a central role in a personal injury claim.
Sure, it can be a chore when it comes to establishing whether or not someone’s actually injured. It’s especially problematic in cases revolving around whiplash claims, as there’s little in the way of observable medical evidence to provide a case either for or against a claim of that nature.
However, what if there was a better way? Imagine if you could look back in time and peer into the body of a claimant at the time of injury – wouldn’t that be a brilliant way to see if their body actually did undergo trauma like it says in their lawsuit?
Well guess what – it’s happening. Or it will happen soon. At least it will in Alberta, Canada, where one company plans on using data from a Fitbit fitness tracker to delve into the issue.
Vivametrica, an analytics firm, just launched a new service that offers a way to use a Fitbit or another similar wearable fitness tracker in personal injury cases. So how does it work? Well a claimant slips the fitness tracker on and wears it for several weeks as the little device does its thing, gathering up data on the claimant’s sleep patterns, daily activity levels, and things of that nature – then Vivametrica takes the information and compares it to its database of other Fitbit users in the claimant’s age, height and weight class. If it turns out that the claimant demonstrates diminished physical capacity for movement then it strengthens his or her case.
Now it seems to me that this could be a good thing – except for the fact that if this new system becomes standardised it could lead to long, drawn out personal injury compensation claims as the data is gathered. I mean for what it’s worth,if you’re going to make injured claimants hobble about for months to prove they were actually injured, effectively making them suffer for longer than they would need to, what good is this new system?
In other words, it sounds like a good, but misguided idea to me. I’m sure that maybe in some instances it might work, but in most? Feels dodgy to me.