The Power of the Health Community

As a hay fever sufferer, this time of year I’m constantly blowing my nose and rubbing my eyes. I find myself always with stretched face, mouth open hoping I can find the nearest tissue before the sneeze erupts everywhere. One of the worst times of the day is the morning time as I often find myself waking up with my nose streaming. It’s only after several encounters with the toilet roll, do the symptoms finally settle down.

The other day I was chatting to a good friend of mine, who also suffers from the big HF. We were sharing stories about our least favourite symptoms and comparing notes on our medication regimen. Ciaran said how he was using a cheaper drug to the market leading one I was using and said it worked just as well. Good to know, as I made a mental note of its name. Ciaran then asked me when I took the daily pill, I said in the morning time, to which he replied that it was better if you take it before you go to bed. He had found that the symptoms were much reduced in the morning times. I have been doing this the last few days and it has made a big difference.

This seems like such a small, almost non-event but the benefit of having this social aspect to health management has made a big difference in reducing the effects of hay fever for me. I have no doubt there are countless success stories people will have in relation to how what a friend or family member told them worked in helping them manage a particular ailment.  

When we first started developing our concept for getHealth a fantastic resource we enjoyed (particularly while eating our lunch) was watching the talks on TEDMED. It was a useful way of finding out more about what was going on within the health community. One of the most inspiring speakers we came across was Dave deBronkart aka ‘e-Patient Dave’ in his talk ‘Let patients help!’ Dave talked about how he was able to tap into the knowledge from the internet community in his fight against cancer. The community told him about a potential treatment as well as the doctor’s in his area and their phone numbers. Dave, when referring to this support, said, “how amazing is that? And here’s the thing, you won’t be able to find a website which gives you that kind of information.” 

Dave went on to beat his cancer, against the odds, and concludes that the access to a health community of people who have managed particular conditions, was a major reason in him beating the disease.

This is an incredibly inspiring story and one we hope to emulate through the development of getHealth. By connecting people and creating a health aware community people can now have access to a motivating and supporting network of people via a piece of glass that sits in your pocket.

As Dave would say, “how amazing is that?”

Silicon Republic: Tech Start-Up of the Week

GetHealth is a new Irish start-up that is zoning in on the health and fitness arena to gamify it. The team have created a new type of gaming app so that users can track, monitor and reach their personal health goals.

Business Post: Start-up of the Day

Yesterday we were delighted to be featured as the Sunday Business Post’s start-up of the day. For any of you who missed it here is the article.

This week the Irish University Entrepreneurship Forum (IUEF) is showcasing some of Ireland’s young entrepreneurial talent. The student-run initiative connects business leaders with entrepreneurs in third level education in Ireland.

Throughout this week The Daily Business Post will interview some of the companies involved in the IUEF. Today’s company isgetHealth, an online and mobile health planner for employees.

Company: getHealth: an app for online health planning

Employees: 3

Founders: Chris Rooney, Michael Flanagan and Liam Ryan

Funding: €15,000 NDRC Launchpad and Enterprise Ireland feasibility grant

What it does: online and mobile health planning

In the past 20 years obesity levels among Irish men have tripled to 26 per cent. Among women obesity has also risen from 13 per cent in 1990 to 21 per cent.

GetHealth aims to take some of the misery out of dieting by providing company for its users.

Set up by Chris Rooney, Liam Ryan and Michael Flanagan in September 2011, the company’s application encourages users to team up with co-workers and set weekly health goals.

Once a health task is complete, the user can log it on their smartphone. Each check-in earns the user points. The app has a competitive element as points move a team up their company leaderboard.

“It is preventative care as opposed to reactive care,” said Rooney. “We wanted to create something which would engage people in trying to improve their health. It can be quite intimidating for people. We wanted to gamify it and make it social.”

The product has an eye on US market where corporate wellness is more advanced. GetHealth believes a wellness program can reduces health care costs such as absenteeism and health insurance. The company tracks the user data and interprets it into a projected return on investment for companies.

“We spoke to some HR people at the Chicago corporate wellness conference earlier this year,” said Rooney. “They cite two key problems when implementing wellness programmes. The first is engagement. They were spending a lot of money putting these programmes in place and people were not using them. Secondly, is there any quantifiable metrics that show it is a success? Those are the two key asks that we are trying to hone in on.”

The NDRC Launchpad programme has invested €15,000 in getHealth. The company also received an Enterprise Ireland feasibility grant and is seeking to raise €100,000 in private equity investment over the next few months.

Rooney and Ryan met when both played in the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland and have already started SafeText.com, a text message reminder service for women on the contraceptive pill.

Rooney is currently studying for a degree in business and law at University College Dublin. Ryan just completed a degree in civil engineering at Trinity College Dublin.

Getting Health: 28 days later

Today, after finishing the 28 day getHealth challenge, we at team gH are left to reflect on whether or not the application has created something which does truly help improve the health of its users or whether the app has been more like a harmful virus killing everyone in its path for the last 28 days (nerdy horror film reference).

The initial feedback has been that the more users have stayed engaged with the application, the more their health has indeed improved. One of these engaged users is of course myself and immediately you might think, ‘well of course you were going to have good results, you’re clearly a biased user.’ Believe me when I say, I wanted to convince myself as much as others that the application could have a positive effect on health. For me, there was no point in promoting something which I couldn’t convince myself of the benefits.

So what are my results? Well I have lost about 7lbs in the four weeks, my skin looks better and generally I feel have more energy. What’s been the difference? Below are the list of identifiable changes the application has helped me make to my lifestyle over the last four weeks:

• cut out fizzy drinks and replace with water
• swapped white grains for whole grains e.g. brown bread and whole grain rice
• started exercising more: four thirty minute sessions per week roughy
• always aim to eat my five a day
• cut out a lot of pork and red meat from my diet and try and eat poultry or fish instead 
• minimize the amount of fast foods/sweet things I was eating 

The most amazing revelation for me has been that none of these changes have been particularly difficult: I still go out and have a few drinks, I still indulge in a bit of chocolate and still have the odd lazy evening. What has changed is just these simple every day things which I am much more conscious about through my interactions with the app. 

All that remains to be said is to thank all of you who took part in the trial. This initial taster of user engagement over the last 4 weeks has made us feel very excited about the future of getHealth and we’ll keep you posted on any new developments.

Chris

Co-Founder, getHealth

getHealth Launches ‘28 Day Health Challenge’

Following a busy 6 weeks of product development, getHealth has launched its alpha trial today!

The mobile web application is launched as a 28 day health trial to help get the nation healthy. The aim of the application is to help people improve their health by making it a fun game. The game revolves around allowing users the ability to ‘check-in’ and earn points for health successes. The idea is that you continually grow your points tally over time and play against other users in your group to try to reach the top of the leaderboard.

The categories which you can check-in to are:

1. Move - what exercise have you done
2. Munch - log what you have eaten/drank
3. Mind - what have you done to improve your mind/de-stress. 

Within each of the three categories there is a list of subcategories. These are the specific activities users check-in to. When users go to check-in to a task they will be asked to be more specific. For example, if a user checks-in to a run, they will be asked how long they did it for: 15min, 30mins, 45mins, or 60mins. Depending on what they choose, they will be allocated the corresponding points. The subcategories are all very simple, quantifiable healthy tasks such as: eating five fruit and vegetable per day, drinking 8 glasses of water, eating whole grains, getting 8 hours of sleep, going for a cycle etc. 

Once a user checks-in, their points get added to their personal tally and moves them up the leaderboard (users can connect with friends or remain as part of the overall getHealth leaderboard). Users will occasionally be notified via SMS or e-mail as to their peers’ health successes. This will create a sense of positive competition where users will feel spurred on to improve their health due to the successes they can see from others.

If you would like to sign-up and try it out, click here to complete a short survey and we will be in touch to give you all the details you need. Please feel free to send this invitation on to friends and colleagues and, as always, we appreciate any feedback you have for us. 

getHealth ‘28 Day Challenge’ launching 20th February. Be a part of it!

Following completion of the NDRC’s Launchpad programme in December, getHealth, a Dublin based technology company, are launching a product on February 20^th which aims to help people improve their health by making the process fun. How? They’re making health a game by giving people points for checking in to health achievements. What’s more, it’s social! By teaming up with friends, users have the support of their peers as they collectively compete for the top of the getHealth leaderboard.

How does it work?

When a user signs-up (via their smartphone) they take a quick tutorial and then team up with their colleagues. Once in a team, they then ‘check-in’ to any health successes through the move, munch and mind tabs at the bottom of their profile. Move refers to exercise, munch refers to diet and mind refers to activities improving mental health.

Every time a user checks-in, it sends a motivational message to the rest of their team informing them of their success. Check-ins are worth points for the user and their team, allowing them to compete for the top of the company’s leaderboard. 

The obesity levels in Ireland are reaching crisis point according to the National Adult Nutrition Survey earlier this year. It showed that 61 per cent of adults in the Republic of Ireland were either overweight (37 per cent) or obese (24 per cent). Dr Foley-Nolan, director of human health and nutrition at Safefood said obesity was “unquestionably” the biggest public health issue in Ireland surpassing that of alcohol and cigarettes, particularly with the attendant problem of type 2 diabetes.

Recently, Safefood has been running a hard-hitting Stop the Spread campaign on television which seeks to confront those who are in denial about their weight. Now a new initiative, which aims to get the nation healthy, is launching. Its name: getHealth.

getHealth are launching the ‘getHealth 28-day Challenge’ on the 20th of February at Dublin Beta to help get the nation healthy. If you or your company would like to join our exclusive community and take part in the getHealth Challenge, please enter your email address at www.gethealthapp.com or contact Chris at chris@gethealthapp.com. All users are required to take a health survey before sign-up, click here to do it now.

Press Release: Mobile fitness expert & entrepreneur Ted Vickey to act as Corporate Wellness Advisor

DUBLIN, 16 DECEMBER, 2011.

Dublin tech startup firm getHealth today announced that Ted Vickey, Founder and President of American based FitWell LLC, a fitness management consulting company and former Executive Director of the White House Athletic Center under the Bush, Clinton and Bush Administrations has been named as the Corporate Wellness Advisor.  Vickey will provide strategic advice to the firm and its clients, and assist in business development initiatives within the corporate wellness industry.

“Ted’s experience, industry leadership and insight will contribute significantly to getHealth and our focus on using technology to address the growing cost of employee health” said Liam Ryan, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of getHealth.

In addition to his FitWell duties, Vickey is currently working on a PhD in exercise science, technology and social networking at the National University of Ireland at Galway and is a member of the Board of Directors for the American Council on Exercise, a fitness and wellness certification organization with over 55,000 trainers worldwide.  Prior to his recent studies, Vickey was Vice President of Comprehensive Health Services where he led the fitness and wellness division of the largest privately held occupational medicine company in the United States.  He holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Exercise Science from Penn State and a Masters of Business in International Business and Entrepreneurship from the University of Limerick.

“getHealth has the vision to become a global leader in technology, mobile health and wellness,” Vickey said. “I hope that I can bring to Liam, Chris and getHealth some ideas, perspectives and industry relations from my many years in the corporate wellness industry”.

getHealth is a Dublin based online and mobile company that provides an interactive solution to the corporate wellness industry. The service helps employees achieve their health goals through competitive game-play and social interaction with their co-workers. The company aims to reduce health care costs such as absenteeism and health insurance for employers.

getHealth is currently based in the National Digital Research Centre on the Launchpad programme and has already secured a number of trial partners in the US for its launch in May 2012.

Media Contact:  Chris Rooney

Tel: 0851307934

Email:  chris@gethealth.ee

“Why I’m Investing in Health, not Healthcare” - Esther Dyson

Last night we attended an insightful event with Esther Dyson at the Science Gallery, Trinity College Dublin. The talk was hosted by Shay Garvey of Delta Partners and followed with a Q&A with an intimate audience. I want to share with you some of the notes we took, and in particular, highlight the important trends that are happening in the online health space.

Let’s dive straight in and I’ll do my best to paraphrase.

The talk immediately started with the obvious: the healthcare system is flawed. Although a number of solutions have been implemented to try to combat rising healthcare costs for consumers, Esther highlighted that the simple solution is to change the incentives to promote behavioral change.

Today, we are subject to a market for bad health; processed foods, fatty foods, candy, alcohol, air pollution, lack of exercise, lack of education, computer games, consumption of data on the internet, social networks etc. We are getting sick and we are now becoming more aware of how previous generations and their actions have affected our health behaviors.

Esther points to a new market, a market for good health where the quantified self is now coming to the forefront. Quantified self means to essentially become a life blogger; recording and measuring our body’s outputs and gather statistics so a person can become more aware of how the body functions. Essentially a feedback loop to put the person in a better position to make a decision about their health. These can include measuring devices for blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol, weight, bio markers. We will begin to gather knowledge about our bodies to look for correlations between research and indicators.

However, Esther points out that what is missing is motivation to encourage and promote engagement in health and in the quantified self. Unless we can motivate each other and promote this motivation to others, we will face difficulty in engaging the person.

The quantified self will begin with early adopters who are already engaged with their bodies and who wish to gather more data. These early adopters will pay for measuring devices like FitBit, Jawbone Up or Withings which are already on the market.

Then comes employers. Employers will begin to see that the influence of positive reinforcement of health initiatives within their organization will not only show each employee that they are ‘loved’ by their bosses, but that they will begin to see a return of investment in health programs. Studies have already shown that for every dollar invested in corporate wellness plans should yield a return of 3 dollars within 18 months (Wellness Council of America, 2010). This ROI will be seen in reduced health premiums and lower insurance claims.

Next, Esther highlights that insurers will follow suit. By seeing the benefit of providing informative tools, insurers will be in a better position to quantify their market segment and provide more comprehensive care packages tailored to the person.

(Disclaimer: It is clear that this knowledge can be used against the person, but this is not for discussion in this blog post. It is important for governing bodies to control what these organizations do with the data as opposed to what they know.)

At this point I asked a simple question, can health be fun? Esther pointed out that not only will health be fun by using gameplay and game mechanics, but health will be fun through motivation. It can come in the form of badges, points, competitions, status, incentives, leader-boards, and challenges. A proof example was quoted in the form of airline miles or on the strategy taken by Keas’s corporate wellness programs.

However, it is important to stress that each person needs to find their own ‘fix’ to motivate themselves to achieve their health goals. Esther has been swimming every day, 365 days a year, for 1 hour since she was 18 years old. Apart from missing 2 weeks during her cosmonaut training over 2 years ago, she has got herself into a routine of devoting that time to physical activity and exercise in the pool. However, a number of years ago she traded some of her swim time for flossing. Now each day she flosses for 10minutes and swims for 50minutes. 

About the Speaker: Esther Dyson is chairman of EDventure Holdings. Her primary activity is investing in and nurturing start-ups, with a recent focus on health care and aerospace. She recently (October 2008 to March 2009) spent six months training as a backup cosmonaut in Star City outside Moscow Russia.

About getHealth: getHealth is a new online and mobile platform that helps employees achieve their health goals through gameplay and interaction with their co-workers. Find out more here: www.gethealthapp.com.

getHealth does America: Part 1

On Wednesday 12^th October, Chris was doing a Google search on the US wellness industry  and he came across the Annual Corporate Wellness Conference which was being held in Chicago in two weeks time from the 26^th to the 28^th of October.

The conference was the largest corporate wellness conference in the world bringing together 1500 attendees from all over the world as well as many of the experts in the industry to share their knowledge. We quickly realized that if we were going to try and validate our business idea we needed to attend this conference. Also, because we were applying to a number of accelerator programmes in San Francisco we thought, “sure, if we’re going to Chicago we may as well pop down the road to San Francisco.” So our plan was that that would become the second part of our trip (see “getHealth does America: Part 2”)

Things started to happen very quickly with flights and hotels being booked, business cards being printed and meetings being set up, and despite Chris frantically trying to renew my passport we got everything organized very quickly. On Tuesday 25^th we headed off for the morning flight to Chicago O’Hare International.

After the 8 hour flight and getting to the hotel in Schaumburg, Illinois, we quickly assessed our surroundings and our itinerary.  Our first engagement was a networking cocktail party in the hotel where the conference was being help. Armed with business cards, a few flyers and pure adrenaline we headed off to the cocktail reception to commence our networking barrage of the US wellness industry. With palpable enthusiasm for our new idea and our Irish accents in full swing, we got a lot of positive feedback from attendees at the conference.

Following a few glasses of wine and some business card collecting, we headed off to dinner with Marcia Reid, a Healthcare Consultant (with quite a large following of her personal blog on healthcare), whom Liam had connected with via Twitter. It was good to relax and chat about our idea with them and talk about our strategy for launching this service in the US market. Amidst the food and chatting, we quickly realized that our jetlag was catching up on us and we headed on back to our hotel to rest up for the next day.

Wednesday

Not adjusting to the jetlag meant we had an unexpected early start to the morning. However, this allowed us to get some good research done on some of the individuals we were due to meet later in the day.

Throughout the morning we spoke to HR managers, health insurance providers and wellness coordinators about our business concept and, like the previous day, the response back was extremely positive and a number of the companies expressed an interest in piloting the service for whenever it launches.

As well as speaking to individuals about our concept, the conference was also a fantastic opportunity to learn about the corporate wellness industry and to see what challenges companies faced. Particularly notable speakers included Dr. Cecil Wilson, President of the American Medical Association, who spoke a lot about various legislation which are either in effect or coming into effect in the next couple of years.  Also of note was Pani Tademeti who talked about the ‘Return on Investment for Web Based Enrollment System Implementation’. This session was interesting from our point of view, as it let us hear from other experts how they can create a culture of change for wellness coordinators through the use of software and online technology.

Our meetings went very well throughout the day and perhaps the most productive time was spent going round the stands chatting to people, finding out what they do and also identifying any potential competitors.

With the day coming to a close we were able to relax and reflect on what had been a great day of networking for us with new friends and a delicious steak.

Thursday

Up early again to finish off our demo. Some of the attendees we had met the previous day had expressed an interest in being able to view it and so we spent a bit of time adding the final touches to it before heading off to the conference.

The first talk this morning was Donald Trump’s first apprentice, Bill Rancic. The talk had very little to do about wellness but it was interesting to hear about his experience of the show and about his business life in general. After he spoke there was a Q&A session, where Liam went up to the mic got up to ask a question in front of this room of 1500 people.

He started off, “Hi, my name is Liam Ryan. I am from Ireland and I’m working on a new online solution for the wellness sector. What impact do you think technology will have in healthcare moving forward? “Bill didn’t hear the question properly. So Liam repeated the entire question, “Hi, my name is….” The answer to the question didn’t matter. What was important was that we just advertised ourselves to the entire conference, and boy did it work. People were coming up to us after saying, “Oh, you’re the Irish guy who asked the question. I’d love to hear more about what you’re working on.” Result!

Bill’s talk was a nice way to ease into the day but it was followed up with a fascinating talk from John Casey who is director of international benefits at Google. John is Irish and a graduate of UCD, and he gave an insightful account of Google’s approach on wellness. It was very clear to see that innovation touches all aspects of their organization.

Thursday proved to be even better than Wednesday with some great contacts acquired and a lot of interest generated in getHealth. We also got the opportunity to attend a couple of sessions which allowed us to get a Corporate Wellness Certified Accreditation which we know will be extremely useful to us as we develop the business.

The end of conference event held on Thursday evening was a truly strange affair; dinner at the world famous Medieval Times. If anyone has seen Jim Carey in The Cable Guy you’ll know exactly what I mean. In this “magical” place you sit around a medieval arena watching as horse men perform tricks and fight each other, while we all sit there and eat half a chicken with our hands. The food was pretty awful but the show was entertaining. I wouldn’t bother going again though!

Friday

The conference finished at 12pm on Friday and, in my opinion they saved the best session for last; Peter Saravis, CEO of Evive Health, talking about new tools for increasing employee engagement in health and wellness programs. This was extremely relevant and helpful to us as it explained how even a smallest of changes can improve employee engagement in wellness. For examples, Peter explained how changing the image used on your wellness promotional materials can improve employee engagement if it makes people feel that they can relate to it more. This session was very well attended and I think it underlined the problem wellness managers have in trying to improve employee engagement.

The conference drew to a close shortly after this session and after our fond farewells to our new friends (and hopefully new clients) we headed back to the hotel to gather our things and prepare for the next part of our trip.

See ‘getHealth does America: Part 2’

getHealth does America: Part 2

Following a relaxing weekend with a visit to friends in Miluakee, Illinois, we travelled to San Francisco on the Saturday evening. Arriving in the city, we were greeted by locals taking full advantage of the Halloween season and at our hotel we marked our arrival in the city with a pint of the familiar black gold.

After an all American breakfast the next morning and casually breaking the shower flooding the entire bathroom, we went on our merry way tearing up San Fran. After taking in the sites and getting lost in Macy’s several times, we made our way to Eric’s house and to our first experience of AirBnB.

Eric was a fencing champion and start-up advisor living on Mason street, who was incredibly blazay about his stunning view from the roof of his down-town apartment.

The next day was an early start for getHealth filled with presentation practicing.  After this, we travelled down to Berkley to have lunch with Chris Bruce, local serial tech entrepreneur. Along with working on his own ventures, Chris also provided office space for start-ups in and around the Berkley area. Following a couple of coffees and some great advice from Chris we were on our way again and headed for Palo Alto.

The tree lined streets and packed out coffee shops, fulfilled all expectations from our watching of ‘the social network’. Here, it was great to meet up with a couple of Irish based out there. Enterprise Ireland’s David Smith and Stripe co-founder, Patrick Collison. Both gave us a good insight into the life out there and were able to make some great recommendations as to how we should approach developing our company out there.

On to the second night with AirBnB and a group of young entrepreneurs living close Stanford were our hosts for the evening. There were three companies in the house all working on a variety of different tech solutions and it was nice to sit and chat over a beer about our different experiences of the start-up world. It’s clear that WePay.com, Stypi (a Y-Combinator Startup) and Predictive Edge will be ones to watch in the future.

Tuesday was the big day for us. The meeting with Rock Health in the morning was what we had been looking forward to for the past week.

Rock health is a new start-up accelerator program based in Chinatown in San Francisco. The program is exclusively aimed at helping start-ups based in the health space and the next session commences in January 2012.

We met with creative director Lesley Ziegler whom we presented our concept to. After showing our demo and some Q&A we got some good feedback from Lesley on getHealth which we helped us in resubmitting our application. 

After the relief that the interview went well, we took ourselves off down the Golden Gate Bridge. We got stunning weather and were lucky to be able to get some great snaps. 

After soaking up San Francisco one more time we headed back down to Palo Alto to meet with Joshua Merril, CEO of Tap Canvas and currently based in 500 Startups. Josh showed us around and pointed out Jawed Karim, the co-Founder of YouTube, sitting by the window mentoring one of of his colleagues’ companies. Josh gave us some good advice on how we should approach setting up a company over in the Bay area. We also meet Dave McClure who was just recently back from Ireland as a judge at the Dublin Web Summit. 

There was an amazing buzz about the place. Some teams brainstorming, others on sales calls and a lot of them building the next million dollar company. The atmosphere and vibe was infectious and we could see why the programme is held in such high regard. 

After this we headed off to our third and final experience of Air BnB. This time we were staying with Iddo Tal and his family, an entrepreneur trying to make it like the rest of us. Their house was still decked out with Halloween paraphernalia from the night before and they were very welcoming to us both. 

As soon as we left our stuff off with them we headed back into town for Silicon Valley NewTech meetup event. Liam had found out about this prior to heading out to the States and had secured us two seats at it. The event was attended by people from all sorts of backgrounds and essentially it was an opportunity for the tech start-up community to come together and to talk about their business ideas. Joshua who we met earlier was attending and the three of us sat and listened intently to some fascinating concepts people come up with for the online space. 

Following the pitches, we got a chance to network over some pizza and beer and it was really nice to feel welcomed to this community having only come over from Ireland. 

After this event our trip was drawing to a close and all that remained was to get a snap at 5am outside Facebook HQ:

Our market to quadruple to $400M by 2016

Earlier this month, ABIreseach released an exciting report on “Mobile Devices and mHealth”.

The report comes just ahead of the 3rd annual mHealth Summit which takes place on December 5th-7th, which “brings together leaders in government, the private sector, industry, academia, providers and not-for-profit organizations from across the mHealth ecosystem to advance collaboration in the use of wireless technology to improve health outcomes in the United States and abroad”.

LONDON - November 23, 2011

​The sports and health mobile application market will grow to over $400 million in 2016 - up from just $120 million in 2010. Much of that growth will be spurred by the ability of mobile handsets to easily connect to wearable devices that in turn can deliver new functionality, accuracy, and appeal to sports and fitness applications.

As the mobile handset adds new ways to access and support healthcare applications, it will become increasingly important within the healthcare market, including home monitoring systems for aging users, personal emergency response services, and remote healthcare monitoring applications. However, sports and fitness will dominate the mobile health application market. 

“Downloadable apps are moving the sports tracking device market from proprietary devices to mobile phones, but adoption has been limited by the data they can collect. However, with the connectivity that Bluetooth Smart will embed in mobile handsets, wearable devices will bring greater detail to mobile handsets,” says Jonathan Collins, principal analyst.

“As applications increasingly become part of a bundle that ships with wearable devices, revenues from mobile applications will lag behind the growth in app downloads. Mobile application downloads will actually grow at nearly twice the rate of revenues between 2010 and 2016, with more than a billion downloads annually by 2016,” says Collins. 

ABI Research’s report, “Mobile Devices and mHealth,” examines the issues driving mobile handset adoption in sports and healthcare applications. This includes forecasts for mobile application downloads, wearable devices, wireless connectivity, regulation, and regional adoption for the next five years. 

You can read more about it on TechCrunch, Business News Daily or visit the ABI Research to review the original publication.

WaaS – The Next Step for Corporate Wellness

As someone who has been involved in online companies for the last number of years, I have found it very interesting to learn about the development of online technology and its application in a number of different industries. Many of these applications are commonly known as ‘Software as a Service’ or SaaS. This essentially means a software solution which is accessed by users via the internet without the need for an on-site IT infrastructure.

A sector really emerging in the area of SaaS is healthcare.  According to latest market study by In-Stat, healthcare spending in SaaS is forecasted to reach $518 million by 2015 and, as a subset of this, small businesses with 20 to 99 employees will be the fastest growing size segment in healthcare, growing over 35% from 2010 to 2015.

With this growth in online related wellness platforms it appears cloud computing is developing into a new sector: WaaS, or Wellness as a Service.

Greg Potter, analyst for In-Stat said, “The healthcare vertical segment, across all sizes of business, and across nearly all product groups, is fast becoming the most robust business vertical segment in US business markets.”

He went on to say, “Demand for cloud computing services in particular has exploded and we see nothing that would indicate that the trend won’t continue at least through 2015.”

But what really can be the application of WaaS for the corporate wellness sector? A lot of people may be put off by the potential hassle of bringing something new into the work place but in fact cloud-software by its very nature is designed so as not to be disruptive to internal infrastructure. Here are my top 5 technical benefits which I believe WaaS will have for companies:

1.)    Lower costs – WaaS applications will most likely be subscription therefore no license fees will be required, thus resulting in lower initial costs.  Having the WaaS provider manage the IT infrastructure means lower IT costs for hardware, software, and the people needed to manage it all.

2.)    Seamless integration – companies selling WaaS solutions with well-designed architectures can scale indefinitely to meet customer requirements. Many providers can also offer customization capabilities to meet specific needs.

3.)    High take-up – The key benefit of SaaS is that the service is available through any device, anywhere. Given the growth in smartphones and the obvious privacy people have as a result of them, it is a prime platform for employees to use WaaS applications to make note of and track their health in real-time.

4.)    Communication platform – If a WaaS service is implemented into a company and has high adoption rates, it can be used as a platform to easily communicate with employees informing them on new updates with the company’s wellness programs.

5.)    Easy upgrades – Because the WaaS provider manages all updates, there are no patches for customers to download or install.

Tied in to these technical benefits are two overall key benefits where WaaS can dramatically improve the provision of wellness programs. These are:

-          improving employee engagement in wellness and,

-          measuring the return on investment

Firstly, to talk about improving engagement, let me give you an example. Say you have an employee called Burt who is a diabetic and who is required to keep a food diary. Rather than him physically writing down everything he eats and drinks, it would be much better if Burt could use a system which allows him to easily select what he has consumed that day and which then stores it for him on a personal database.

However, this system is not just some spreadsheet which is available on his laptop or PC; it is an online WaaS platform which allows him to select the consumed items on his smart phone. This then relays that data back to his PC which can then be downloaded as a spreadsheet and sent to Burt’s doctor.

The benefit of this service being available via a smart phone is that Burt can now use a device which will always be close to him and which allows him track his food intake in real time. This means that he doesn’t have to sit with a notepad before he goes to bed and try to think through what food he had that day.

This is a very simple example but technology can be applied to all sorts of areas for WaaS; from apps which calculate calories by taking photos of your food, to those which use geo location on a smart phone to tell you about nearby gyms.

Employee engagement in wellness is obviously crucial for employers, but can that engagement be measured? Of course there is a lot of different ways companies’ measure the success of wellness and WaaS is a way of building on what techniques are already used.

So, secondly, if we take Burt and his diabetes again; if a system, like the one described, is implemented and 50% of the workforce use it to track their dietary habits, this can be easily fed back to the employer to show their overall level of engagement. It might show that 80% of employees are using the system to track their diet every day, with a further 10% using it three days or more in one week. This can all be displayed in a very simple analytics chart which can be emailed to the wellness coordinator at the start of each week.

Over time, what the employer will hopefully start to see is that because tracking food and drink consumption has been made much easier and accessible, employees are more conscious about it and are starting to reduce their calorie intake. The employer can now start to match these metrics to things like reduced absenteeism, improved presenteeism and even improved productivity. This has created an easy platform for employers to measure their return on investment simply by collecting the data through a WaaS service.

The potential for WaaS is endless and it will be exciting to see over the next number of years how technology companies approach this new area and what innovations are brought to market. I do not believe that WaaS technology will ever replace conventional wellness programs but it certainly can enhance what already exists. Ultimately, the simpler WaaS technology can make lifestyle management, the more engaged a user is likely to become in actively trying to improve their health. That’s the theory anyway, so go and help prove it!

Our High-Tech Health-Care Future

Isn’t it exciting when you read articles like these. We spotted another post by Frank Moss on the New York Times this morning.

Why can’t Americans tap into the ingenuity that put men on the moon, created the Internet and sequenced the human genome to revitalize our economy?

I’m convinced we can. We are in the early phases of the next big technology-driven revolution, which I call “consumer health.” When fully unleashed, it could radically cut health care costs and become a huge global growth market.

Over the past few years, innovations like electronic health records and the use of mobile computing devices in hospitals have begun to improve medical care delivery. Consumer health information Web sites and online disease support groups have made millions of people active participants in their own health care.

But imagine a far more extreme transformation, in which advances in information technology, biology and engineering allow us to move much of health care out of hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices, and into our everyday lives.

Here’s a picture — inspired by ideas and innovations emerging from university research labs, clinical innovation centers, start-ups and large companies — of how it could work.

It would begin with a “digital nervous system”: inconspicuous wireless sensors worn on your body and placed in your home would continuously monitor your vital signs and track the daily activities that affect your health, counting the number of steps you take and the quantity and quality of food you eat. Wristbands would measure your levels of arousal, attention and anxiety. Bandages would monitor cuts for infection. Your bathroom mirror would calculate your heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen level.

Then you’d get automated advice. Software that could analyze and visually represent this data would enable you to truly understand the impact of your behavior on your health and suggest changes to help prevent illness — by far the most effective way to cut health care costs.

Many situations would still call for professional medical attention, of course, but in most cases you wouldn’t need to make a costly trip to the doctor’s office. If you were not feeling well, a lifelike avatar on your smart phone would use natural-language processing to listen as you described your symptoms and then would translate them into medical jargon. After consulting a diagnostic supercomputer, the avatar would ask you to run a few quick medical tests at home.

You might slip a low-cost plastic attachment over your phone display, look into its eyepiece and conduct a cataract exam. The avatar would transmit the results to your human doctor, who would send you a video message explaining the diagnosis and prescribing treatment.

When you did need an office visit, you and your doctor would sit side by side in front of a large touch screen that would display a conceptual animation of what was going on inside your body. Decisions like choice of medication and dosing schedules would be made collaboratively with your doctor, and treatment regimens would be synchronized to apps on your phone that would make the task of following doctor’s orders — all too often neglected — easy and even fun. (I am an adviser to some early stage start-ups developing technologies like these.)

The United States should commit to a “moon shot” for consumer health to make this imagined world a reality. In addition to the health benefits, we would gain revenue from exports of consumer health products to countries like China and India, which are likely to become enormous health care markets. And the savings in health care costs could easily amount to a trillion dollars annually, as those costs are now about 18 percent of gross domestic product but could be brought closer in line with the 10 percent typical of modern developed nations.

I acknowledge that this goal is very optimistic, given the paternalism of the medical profession, the poor health habits of most Americans and the perverse incentives of our health care system.

But the burgeoning consumer health revolution has a powerful force on its side — American creativity. There is a rapidly growing network of inventors, academics and entrepreneurs who share a passion for empowering individuals to take control of their health. There is even a spirited health data movement, known as the Quantified Self, that is reminiscent of the Homebrew Computer Club, whose members helped spawn Apple and other companies in the early days of the personal computing revolution.

There’s also private sector money beginning to flow. Venture capitalists are ramping up their investments in health-tech start-ups. The X Prize Foundation is co-sponsoring a $10 million award for the best mobile device allowing consumers to diagnose their own diseases.

For its part, all the government has to do is to catalyze this revolution. One step in the right direction is Healthdata.gov, a free resource of public health data and tools that can help innovators quickly bring to market data-driven applications and services. A bigger step would be for Congress to pass a bill that would orchestrate the development of interoperability and privacy standards for consumer health products and actively promote the industry at home and abroad.

Recent history has shown that when the right cultural, technical and economic forces converge, people can transform fundamental aspects of society from the bottom up in a way that seemed impossible just a short time before. I believe that such a time is coming for health care.

Venture Capitalists, trying to curb health-care costs

We can’t help but notice the positive reactions in our sector. This article was written by Christopher Weaver over at the Washington Post.

Over the past two decades, venture capitalists helped make possible striking advances in health care, including robotic surgery, cancer vaccines and genomics. But such innovations also fuel higher health-care spending, and now private investors see new opportunities in betting on companies that could curb those costs.

America’s health-care spending is “twice what it was 10 years ago, and it’s forecasted to grow in an unaffordable way for the country,” said John Doerr, a Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner who backed Google, Twitter and other Silicon Valley giants. Doerr’s answer to the health-care problem is Essence Group, a St. Louis health plan he bought in 2007 and converted into a laboratory to develop software and services to help doctors and insurers tackle costs.

Doerr isn’t alone in spotting an opportunity in health care’s high costs. Venture capitalists are increasingly interested in nuts-and-bolts businesses such as data-mining and grass-roots care management. Meanwhile, the appeal of companies that seek high-ticket, high-risk medical breakthroughs is on the wane.

The share of venture dollars flowing to seed and early-stage investments in biotechnology and medical devices has plummeted since 2007, when investors pumped $3.6 billion into 332 deals in which a price was disclosed, according to data compiled for Kaiser Health News by FactSet Research Systems. As of late October, investors had spent $1.1 billion on only 89 such deals this year. Overall venture investing declined by nearly one-third as the economic recession set in but is on track this year to return to nearly pre-recession levels.

“There’s a realization that part of the health-care cost problem is adding on the bells and whistles of [medical] technology,” said Ian Morrison, a health-care consultant in Menlo Park, Calif. “The smart money is recognizing that’s not the winning formula for the future.”

Some of that money is increasingly going to information technology, business services and other health-focused companies. For instance, software companies that cater to the health-care industry received $407 million in investments in the first three quarters of this year, compared with $311 million for the full year in 2007 before the recession, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers researchers, who compile the industry-backed quarterly MoneyTree Report. Though the increase so far remains modest, investors say interest in the sector is heating up.

Venture capitalists are still looking for strong companies in all sectors – drugs, devices and services – but cost concerns and other factors have led to changes in demand. Investors are wagering that customers will pay attention to the promise of lower costs.