Fitbit Launches Fitbit Care for 1,600 Enterprise Clients, Expanding into Health Coaching and Virtual Care

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat)It has been reported that, in order to strengthen its business with corporate clients, smart hardware manufacturer Fitbit has launched Fitbit Care, a module that includes new services for health coaching and virtual care. Currently, Fitbit serves more than 1,600 corporate wellness clients and has implemented over 100 health programs in the areas of health and wellness management.

Fitbit Product Line (Image Source: Fitbit Official Website)

Fitbit Care partners with health coaches to help users achieve their health and wellness goals through personalized care plans and an app, supported by phone calls and in-person meetings. Use cases cited by the company include weight management, smoking cessation, and the management of chronic or complex conditions such as diabetes, depression, and COPD.

To support these more powerful products, the platform also supports the integration of more advanced health metrics, such as blood glucose levels, blood pressure, and medication adherence.

Last year, Apple surpassed Fitbit in global market share within the wearable device sector, a lead it has maintained through 2018. In response, Fitbit aims to diversify its health and wellness revenue streams beyond device sales, generating recurring revenue through development and investment initiatives.

As competition in the wearable device sector intensifies, Fitbit has transformed health coaching and chronic disease management into promising business lines, having acquired the health coaching startup Twine Health earlier this year.

Twine Health has developed a platform that helps manage chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension through personalized recommendations for lifestyle changes.

Furthermore, in the healthcare sector, Fitbit will leverage Google’s cloud services and engineering support to advance its products. Its wearables business also plans to utilize Google’s new Cloud Healthcare API to help link user data with electronic health records.

By leveraging the Google Healthcare API, Fitbit aims to accelerate interoperability with existing and future healthcare partners and provide scalable data exchange to meet the needs of large enterprise partners.According to foreign media reports, this idea aims to provide patients and clinicians with a more comprehensive understanding of patients’ health status, thereby supporting more personalized care.

Given these two moves in 2018, Fitbit’s launch of Fitbit Care was a natural progression.

“With Fitbit Care, the solutions we provide empower individuals to take control of their health by offering accountability, support, guidance, and resources, thereby removing the most significant barriers to behavior change,” said John Moore, Medical Director at Fitbit Health, in a statement.

Fitbit has also expanded its partnership with health insurer Humana by providing plan members with access to Fitbit Care, an additional health and wellness coaching application. Fitbit first became a Humana customer in 2013, supporting the insurer’s wellness programs such as Go365 and the Humana Employee Assistance Program, which help employers control rising costs associated with chronic diseases.

Jeff Reid, Senior Vice President of Wellness Solutions at Humana, stated, “By adding new health coaching capabilities to Fitbit Care, we can provide more personalized and meaningful support to members focused on specific health goals, such as smoking cessation or weight loss, or managing or preventing chronic diseases.”

“Fitbit’s intuitive technology and human coaches are powerful tools for attracting and motivating members, creating more frequent and convenient touchpoints that support our members beyond the doctor’s office.”

References:

https://medcitynews.com/2018/09/fitbit-launches-new-enterprise-platform-for-health-and-disease-management/?rf=1