Smart technology offers convenience in everyday life, but post-surgical complications made me appreciate it in a whole new way. My smart ring even proved unexpectedly helpful when it came to helping doctors understand what was going on.

My Oura Ring Helped Doctors Diagnose the Problem

I’ve been wearing an Oura Ring for four months now, and while I’ve appreciated the way it provides me with a good overall picture of my day-to-day health and fitness, I’d never imagined it would turn out to play an important role during a medical emergency. As things turned out, however, it helped confirm one diagnosis and rule out another.

What was intended to be routine surgery, in and out of the hospital the same day, turned into a rather bigger deal when I suffered complications, including a major infection.

Infections can vary in intensity, and a single temperature reading only provides a snapshot. That’s why nurses will take your temperature regularly when you’re in hospital. A moderate fever for a short time paints a very different picture to a high fever for an extended time.

When I was in enough pain to head to the ER, the triage nurse could see that I had a relatively high fever, but it was the data from my Oura smart ring which turned out to provide a much more detailed picture. When I was seen by a doctor and was able to show them both the temperature and the duration of the fever, they were able to combine that data with the results of the tests they ran to determine that the issue was a more serious one than might have been immediately evident.

The ring also provided valuable supplementary data for another test. When they first did a blood oxygen test in the ER, the result was worryingly low. Again, a single reading only provides a snapshot, but I knew from checking my sleep reports in the Oura app that my O2 reading was usually 98% or 99%.

I was able to show the doctor this data, and confirm that it had remained in the normal range throughout the infection. In this case, it helped to eliminate a concern.

A Smart Lock Unlocked Help When I Needed It

I was confined to bed for several days, which could have been potentially problematic given that I currently live alone. A friend came to stay for the first couple of days, but I’m fortunate enough to live in a large apartment building with a wonderful community. We have a very active WhatsApp group for the building, so putting a call out for help saw several neighbors offering to come and feed me and generally help out.

One of my neighbors has a spare key, so they were able to let themselves in and out, but my smart lock proved invaluable when I had other visitors. I was able to unlock the door from my bed, as well as lock it again after they left.

I’ve previously written about seven reasons to have a smart lock, but this experience taught me that there was an eighth one!

A Smart Doorbell Was Perfect When I Couldn’t Get Out of Bed

My smart doorbell was also incredibly helpful when I was stuck in bed. When the doorbell rang, I was able to see who it was, and to speak with them. I had a number of deliveries arrive during that time, most of which were nothing valuable, so I was able to simply ask them to leave it on the doorstep for my next visitor to bring in. With one expensive item, I could speak with them to tell them to deliver it to a specific neighbor.

In addition to the practical benefits, it’s also reassuring to be able to see who is calling. The last thing you need when you’re ill is the added stress of wondering whether the ring of your doorbell represents something important or merely a routine delivery.

A Smart Plug Paid Dividends When It Hurt to Move

One of the characteristics of fever is that you don’t know whether you’re hot or cold. I initially felt very cold, and at a time when even the slightest movement hurt—or felt like it required more energy than I could summon—even reaching down the side of the bed for the electric blanket control would have been more than I could manage.

Fortunately, I have that connected to a smart plug, so I was able to simply tell my bedroom HomePod “Hey Siri, switch on the bed.” Waking up sweating, it was equally helpful to be able to switch it off again with a simple voice command.

Smart Lighting Helped Me and My Neighbors

I have smart lighting throughout my apartment. That was helpful in the bedroom, where I could use voice commands to switch lights on and off during a time when I could hardly move, but was also ideal when visitors arrived to help.

I could instruct Siri to turn on lights for them in other rooms, all without needing to move from my bed. This was helped by the under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen being switched on automatically using motion detectors.

The Non-Smart Tech That Also Helped

I’d say it was the smart tech in my life that was the most valuable during this time, but I was also grateful for other technology. ER visits tend to involve a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, so having my iPad with Magic Keyboard made for a very easy way to keep in touch with friends on messenger, letting them know what was going on. A few friends-only social media posts also let me keep other friends in the loop in a way that would otherwise have involved way more energy than I had.

My iPhone was also key as a way to keep in touch, of course, and a MagSafe wireless battery pack let me keep it fully charged throughout my stay in the ER.

Finally, while a Kindle might seem an odd thing to mention in a post which is mostly about tech playing a very practical role in coping with a medical episode, when I was hanging around between tests and treatments, having a wide choice of books to read felt like a very welcome luxury.

Apple’s Health Records Would Have Been Ideal

I mentioned earlier that my Oura Ring was able to fill in some medical data gaps. Sadly, the only other tech which did this was the humble Notes app on my iPad. While the UK has taken some significant steps toward joined-up online medical records, not everything is added right away.

As my treatment involved two different hospitals and an urgent care center, the only person with a comprehensive up-to-date record of everything was me. I’ve learned over the years to keep detailed notes of who I saw, where I saw them, and when. I also digitize test results provided to me in paper form, and those proved helpful to doctors who then knew who to contact when they needed to get records from somewhere else.

But all that could have been prevented had the UK adopted Apple’s Health Records feature. The idea of this is that every healthcare provider who treats you can add details of the visit to Health Records, and then a single app provides you and your doctors with instant access to full details of every test and procedure you’ve had. That would have saved considerable time.

I’ve long been a big fan of smart home technology, and was also quickly sold on health tech in the form of smartwatches and smart rings. But not even I could have predicted just how useful it was going to prove in a crisis. If you’ve been looking for one more reason to invest, this might be it.