Fitbit Charge 2
The classic criticism of wearables is that consumers are motivated to use them to achieve their health goals, but interest soon fades. In an effort to make its fitness trackers stickier, Fitbit has added its Fitbit Charge 2 device to the UnitedHealthcare Motion corporate wellness program along with a companion app. It is also adding more partners to its ecosystem, such as a stationary bike company Peloton and nutrition business Habit, among others. Amy McDonough, Fitbit Group Health general manager, talked about Fitbit’s plans with MedCity News at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.
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As part of its work with UnitedHeathcare Motion, Fitbit’s device will integrate with Qualcomm Life’s 2net platform. When the UnitedHealthcare Motion program launched last year, it initially used the TRIO Motion activity tracking device. In the pilot stage, the program was rolled out to UnitedHealthcare employers in 12 states, but has since expanded to employers in 40 states, said McDonough.
The app for the program tracks users’ activity based on frequency, intensity and tenacity — (ie, completing 10,000 steps per day). Participants earn $4 in financial incentives per day by achieving the goals set in at least one of these groups. The device also tracks sleep, and heart rate.
McDonough noted that corporate wellness integrations and disease management programs would be areas of growth for Fitbit this year.
“You are seeing health plans —with UnitedHealthcare and Qualcomm and the Motion program leading the way — incorporating wearables into health plan design and actually designing a program based on science and based on activity levels having an impact on healthcare costs. That program is really capitalizing on… both the consumer trend as well as on the corporate trend of wanting to be proactive with health and wellness. You are also seeing examples of these integrations with health plans but also with medical diagnostics through the collaboration with [Medtronic] iPro 2″ myLog mobile app.
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McDonough added that disease management would be another important growth area for the business in 2017.
“We are also incorporating into several disease management programs, also with health plans. For example, if you have asthma or diabetes or need to lose weight and you have been connected to a healthcare practitioner…you could get access to a Fitbit tracker — that then becomes a way to have more meaningful conversations with your provider.” They can access your Fitbit data and even if they haven’t seen their patient for three months, based on eating, sleeping and activity data they can see how active their patients have been between appointments, McDonough explained.
Like most things, the interest of physicians in using this kind of data will vary based on the perceived usefulness of the data. Critics doubt that most physicians have the ability to manage this amount of data for all of their patients. It will be interesting to see how many more physicians warm up to integrating this information into patient assessments.
Fitbit has been building its own ecosystem, Works with Fitbit, to enable developers and users to connect Fitbit’s platform to apps, services, and hardware. It used the CES conference in Las Vegas as a launch pad to increase program collaborations. Peloton added the company’s stationary bike customers to Fitbit’s platform. They can take cycling classes on demand and track their workouts over time. A partnership with Habit will allow the nutrition business to integrate Fitbit data into diet recommendations for users. Habit will also analyze weight, body fat percentage, and calories burned from Fitbit’s app alongside users’ health goals, food preferences, and nutrition-related biomarkers to create nutrition plans and doorstep-delivered meals meeting health needs, according to a company news release. Fitbit users will also be able to integrate their Fitbit data with Amazon Echo and ask Echo questions about their data. Inevitably, this collaboration, in particular, will raise privacy concerns if it turns out that Amazon can access this data as well.
Photo: Fitbit
