Director, Laboratory of Exercise Physiology and Physical Performance; Associate Director, Function Assessment Core, Boston Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center for Function Promoting Therapies Affiliation: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Physical activity (PA) is essential for the maintenance of health across virtually all therapeutic areas and is often recognized as a ‘sixth vital sign’. While it is becoming clear that relying on point-in-time, clinic-based walking tests are insufficient to accurately capture physical function in a meaningful way, digital health technologies (DHTs) present an opportunity to measure activity in real life.
The Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) is currently leading a pre-competitive collaboration to define a core set of digital clinical measures for physical activity (PA) across therapeutic areas. With more than 70 unique digital endpoints for PA currently being used, we aim to move away from innovating in siloes and leverage multi-stakeholder collaboration to answer tough digital measures questions, demonstrating a process of what good looks like. Understanding which digital measures matter for physical activity can speed up the development of therapeutics and enable the field to respond swiftly and meaningfully, equipped with the right evidence for decision-making.
