A study by Omada Health and Humana to evaluate the effectiveness of digital health tools to achieve weight loss among Medicare Advantage members showed an average 8.7 percent reduction in body weight for the 491 participants over a six month period.
The study uses Omada’s Prevent program, which combines connected devices like a wireless scale pre-synced to a participant’s account, a health-related curriculum, around-the-clock access to a personal health coach, and a like-minded online peer network for support. It is aimed at people at risk for developing chronic conditions, such as Type 2 diabetes.
Given the average age of the participants is 70, Omada CEO Sean Duffy said in a phone interview that he was excited by the results.
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“It’s a neat statement that Humana and Omada obliterated the myth that
seniors can’t do digital behavioral health interventions,” Duffy said.
The company hopes that it the program’s results will help persuade the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to reimburse for diabetes prevention, something they currently don’t do.
“There’s a lot of dialogue at the CMS level for expanding coverage for these types of programs,” Duffy said. “We will keep following this cohort.”
Even six months after the start of the program, Duffy said more than 85 percent of participants remained active in the program.
Duffy said the avaerage body weight loss its study achieved “far exceed” what’s seen in other diabetes prevention programs where 4 percent to 6 percent body weight reduction is typical.
Omada works with employers and health plans to provide evidence-based behavioral interventions for people at risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other obesity-related chronic conditions.
About 11.2 million Americans aged 65 and older have Type 2 diabetes but what’s even more worrying is 51 percent of people in this age group have pre-diabetes, meaning they have elevated blood-glucose levels. People with pre-diabetes have a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
Earlier this year, Duffy said Omada would be doing a similar trial for Medicaid patients. In an update of its status, he said it was halfway through a usability study, marking the first stage of its work. It will evaluate the needs of this population, particularly in areas like health literacy content to ensure it is accessible. It expects the clinical trial to get started at the first quarter of 2016.
