We Measure What Healthcare Doesn’t

Why Biomechanics and Movement Intelligence May Be the Missing Piece in Preventive Care

Modern healthcare can map the genome, replace joints, and treat once-untouchable diseases. But for all that innovation, it overlooks one of the most essential functions of human health: movement.

At Moviq Health, we measure what healthcare doesn’t. Not because we are outside the system, but because the system was never built to see the early signs of physical decline. It was built to treat, not predict risk. That has to change.

This is a critique of what the healthcare system incentivizes, what it measures, and what it ultimately values. Because what we measure shapes what we pay attention to. And right now, we are ignoring the single most predictive indicator of future health and independence in aging adults: movement.

Healthcare Measures Disease. We Measure Resilience.

Most preventive screenings in medicine focus on identifying disease. We screen for cancer, cardiovascular risk, diabetes, and blood pressure. They are all important and necessary. But there is almost no equivalent system for detecting early physical decline, which is the precursor to falls in older adults.

• Falls are the leading cause of injury-related death in adults over 65.

• One in four older adults falls each year.

• A fall can trigger a rapid loss of independence, mobility, and mental well-being.

And yet, routine healthcare rarely measures the functional predictors that lead to a fall such as increased static and dynamic postural sway, reduced power output, or subtle gait impairments.

At Moviq Health, we don’t wait for the fall. We measure resilience. We assess how well someone moves today to predict how likely they are to stay strong, steady, and independent tomorrow.

Why Biomechanical Metrics Matter

Movement is not just about muscles and joints. It is about the system’s ability to control the body in space, respond to external challenges, and maintain coordination under stress. When movement begins to decline, it often reflects deeper changes, ones that may occur long before a diagnosis shows up in a chart.

Here’s what we know from the research:

• Slower gait speed is associated with increased risk of cognitive decline, hospitalization, and mortality.

• Balance impairments predict future fall risk better than past fall history.

• Reduced rate of force development (how quickly muscles activate) is a stronger predictor of falls than simple strength tests.

• Postural sway often increases in the earliest stages of decline, often before a person is aware of any issue.

Yet none of these metrics are part of routine care. We measure them all.

Why Healthcare Misses This

It is easy to wonder if movement is so predictive, why doesn’t the healthcare system already measure it?

The answer lies in three systemic issues:

1. Reimbursement Structures

Most medical services are reimbursed only after a diagnosis exists. Physical decline is not a diagnosis. Subtle balance loss is not a reimbursable code. As a result, clinicians have little financial incentive to invest time or resources into proactive assessments that the system does not pay for.

2. Lack of Tools

Most clinics do not have access to the kind of equipment or software needed to measure biomechanical data. A 10-foot walk test or balance questionnaire is easy to administer, but too blunt to detect early decline. Without better tools, we cannot expect better measurement.

3. Fragmented Care Models

Movement is often the concern of physical therapy, but PT is typically prescribed after surgery or injury. Primary care providers are not trained in biomechanical analysis, and there is little integration across specialties to share responsibility for long-term movement health.

This is the space where Moviq Health operates. Not to replace clinical care, but to fill the critical gap between health and diagnosis, the space where early decline begins, and prevention still works.

What It Means to Measure What Matters

Our mission is not just to measure movement. It is to redefine what we think is worth measuring in the first place.

For decades, healthcare has focused on lifespan. We want to shift that focus to healthspan, the quality of the years we live, not just how many.

And healthspan begins with the ability to move, engage, and live independently.

Movement is not a luxury. It is the foundation for everything else we value in aging well (autonomy, mobility, social connection, and quality of life). By the time someone falls, we are already too late. By the time someone needs a walker, the system has already fallen short.

The Future of Healthcare Is Proactive, Not Reactive

We believe the next evolution in healthcare will not come from treating more disease. It will come from preventing the loss of function that leads to disease, injury, and dependency in the first place.

That means measuring what matters before it becomes a crisis.

It means using objective data to guide personalized interventions. It means redefining prevention to include movement, not just medicine. It means giving people the tools to preserve their resilience long before they enter a clinic or hospital.

And it means building new partnerships between innovators, clinicians, and communities to make this kind of care accessible to everyone.

What Comes Next

At Moviq Health, we are expanding our platform through partnerships with clinics, wellness programs, and concierge providers, starting in Las Vegas and soon beyond. We are validating our system with larger, more diverse populations, and we are working toward publishing peer-reviewed data to support broader clinical integration.

Our goal is simple: No older adult should fall without warning. No one should lose mobility without being told why. No person should face decline without a path to get stronger.

We measure what healthcare doesn’t, so we can act before it becomes something healthcare has to fix. It is easy to overlook movement. It happens in the background of our lives until it stops working. And by then, it is often too late.

But if we pay attention earlier, if we measure what really matters, we can prevent so much suffering before it ever begins.

Movement is more than a function. It is a signal. And at Moviq Health, we are listening closely.