Every day diabetics make dozens of decisions about their health alone. But a new generation of start-ups is trying to use smartphones and internet-connected blood glucose monitors to reach patients in the months-long gaps between doctors’ visits. Livongo, the first digital health company to come to the public market in years, is hoping to prove that technology can help better manage costly chronic conditions, bypassing the traditional healthcare system. The platform analyses data to build a picture of a person’s patterns, while dietitians and physiologists give them real-time advice about diet, medication and exercise by apps or text message. If a patient’s blood sugar is dangerously low or high, a coach will call to warn them within 60 seconds. Inspired by how big tech companies personalise services and nudge people into certain behaviours, Livongo — short for living-on-the-go — started by treating diabetes, before moving on to hypertension, weight loss and mental health. “We all love that Amazon can figure out what books we want to read before we know it — how is it that healthcare can’t do those things? That is the idea behind Livongo,” said Glen Tullman, founder and executive chairman, in a Financial Times interview earlier this year.
The system is ‘overwhelmed’ The Silicon Valley-based start-up is tackling a vast problem: in the US alone, there are more than 30m diabetics and another 84m with “prediabetes”, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. This comes with serious costs: in 2017, the American Diabetes Association estimated that the price of treatment and lost productivity cost $327bn a year. Dr Robert Gabbay, chief medical officer of the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard, said the current system was “overwhelmed”, with about three-quarters of all diabetics not keeping key measurements under control — and at risk of complications that can include blindness, kidney failure, amputations and heart attack. “The typical healthcare model is seeing the provider maybe only every three months,” he said. But a new generation of disease management platforms — including Livongo, Omada Health, and Onduo, a joint venture from Sanofi and Alphabet’s Verily — are transforming the model with smartphones and connected devices. Andrew Matzkin, leader of the digital health practice at consultants Health Advances, said they were making it “more automated, personalised, real time, passive and engaging”.
Source: Digital Health FT