What Is MARD? A Practical Definition for Health Tech Leaders
MARD defined: Mean Absolute Relative Difference, the headline accuracy metric for glucose sensors - lower is better.
Health technology runs on vocabulary, and few terms carry more weight in current strategy conversations than MARD. Here is what it means, why it matters, and the context every reader of our wearables & rpm coverage should have.
The definition
MARD is Mean Absolute Relative Difference, the headline accuracy metric for glucose sensors - lower is better. In practical terms, current-generation CGMs have pushed MARD near 8%, approaching lab-grade reliability.
Why it matters now
Consider the current numbers: oura has sold 5.5 million rings, projects roughly $1.5 billion in 2026 revenue, and has filed confidentially for an IPO (our coverage).
Meanwhile, medicare remote patient monitoring spending has passed $500 million a year, and CMS has proposed consolidating seventeen RPM codes into four by 2027 (our coverage).
Where you'll see it in our coverage
The term appears throughout our Wearables & RPM reporting and the related topic feeds, where the companies, policies, and studies shaping it are tracked daily. When headlines reference MARD, this page is the grounding to read them with.
The bottom line
The organizations that win here will be the ones that treat this as an operating discipline, not a procurement exercise.