Levels of Preventive Care: 

From the levels of care standpoint, preventive care measures are usually categorized in these three levels –

• Level 1: Primary care measures such as controlling smoking, taking vaccine shots and maintaining healthy lifestyles that may involve performing exercises, jogging, eating healthy and nutritious food 
• Level 2: Secondary care measures that may involve performing blood tests at regular interval, early screening and detections, and taking preventive medications   
• Level 3: Tertiary care measures that may involve disease management, creation of community support groups and enrolling into rehab programs 

Emergence of Preventive Health Digital Technologies: 

As we assess this market from digital adoption standpoint, digital health companies have been consistently innovating and bringing different types of digital health apps rapidly. They either collects, analyze and recommends potential cause of a situation to a patient based on their symptoms; or they act as the digital assistant for all the wellness needs. For example – 

• Setting up and tracking of fitness goals 
• Tracking intake of calories and specific nutrients 
• Assisting as a virtual Gym or Yoga instructor 
• Monitoring patient key vitals like Blood pressure, heart rate, sugar level, stress level, oxygen level

Some companies have provided home based collection of samples such as blood or urine tests, that can then analyze the results to provide health insights or any type of support recommendations for the patient. Depending on the severity, patient can be recommended to see their Primary Care Physician (PCP). 

As the care goes virtual, it simply means less burden to healthcare setups and hence reduction in healthcare spending and overall cost of care. Moreover, with early tracking of patient vitals, it simply prevents or provides accurate diagnosis to a problem, hence better patient outcomes. 

Opportunities around preventive care digital health adoption: 

Trend 1# Improving patient immersive experience 

As patients are going digital, the space has seen an emergence of immersive experiences where a patient can simply play a game and perform exercises through the process. 

According to Statista, the VR gaming market revenue in the United States alone is forecast to generate up to 19.5 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2025 

Trend 2# Direct to Consumer & Home-based testing on rise 

Lot of companies are coming up with in direct-to-consumer and home-based testing to support preventive care models. Tests like covid 19 rapid test at home, or blood, DNA & gut-microbial testing, everything is now possible at the comfort of home. Some of the other notable innovations are around Continuous Glucose & Ketone Monitoring systems where lot of companies have innovated. 

Trend 3# Fitness Trackers getting intelligent 

Companies are also looking to leverage machine learning for prediction while monitoring of these key vitals to improve overall fitness. Apps like fitness trackers are getting intelligent as they integrate data from various sources like EHRs, watches, health clouds. 

Trend 4# Continuous Innovations around wearables space 

Wearables is one area which has seen rapid evolution. With big players like Apple, Samsung and FitBit already disrupting the space, there are continuous innovations happening. Things like on-wrist ECG app to assess patient’s heart for atrial fibrillation (AFib), a common heart rhythm irregularity; to simply getting heart rate notification around a specific threshold, everything is possible. As we talk more for wearables, apps like EDA Scan detects electrodermal activity, which helps in indicating body's response to stress, which is then leveraged to manage stress levels. 

Trend 5# Nutrition assistants taking it to next level of personalization 

A significant investment has been happening on nutrition apps where these apps can help in managing food intolerances, increasing energy levels, tracking nutrients going in your body to effectively manage your weight or simply mood. Popular apps like MyFitnessPal have an enormous food database, barcode scanner, recipe importer, restaurant logger, food insights, calorie counter, and many more. 

Companies like DayTwo’s Obesity Delivers Sustained Weight Loss, BMI Reduction, and a Cost-Effective Alternative to Expensive Medications Food as medicine approach provides precise dietary recommendations to enable weight loss without the use of prescription medications. DayTwo, has world’s largest and highest resolution microbiome discovery platform, that offers an effective program that achieves sustained weight loss and reduction in Body Mass Index (BMI) for adults who are obese and for those with metabolic disease. 

Trend 6# Rise of community driven integrated care environments 

Another area that is fast evolving is a community driven approach to manage the health of individuals part of the community. To support this, data is being shared across platforms so that individuals participating in such care programs can benchmark them against the aggregated data collected within the community. Due to pandemic, Employers are also innovating and open to leverage care platforms that can take care of employees and their families’ health needs more holistically. This means more job satisfaction and higher productivity.     

For example, Wellview is a digital health platform designed to deliver 9x industry health activation, 5-star care experiences and >7% cost savings for employers, helps make employees and their families happier, increasing life and job satisfaction, inspiring performance, decreasing burnout and creating a culture of health. 

Another company named Family Proud, is an app for patients and families, needing acute or ongoing community support. Family Proud is an app that makes it simple for anyone to give and receive support, anytime, anywhere. Unlike other platforms, Family Proud creates continuous loops of engagement in a dynamic digital community. 

Let us know your feedback what you think of this newsletter. If you have an interesting healthcare product or service making care affordable, accessible for all and want to share your digital health story with our community of 25K+ subscribers, please feel free to reach us at healthviva@taliun.com 

Till then Adios! 

HealthViva Team