Mountain View, California-based chronic disease management company Livongo has launched integrations with top wearables companies to alert users with timely notifications about their health on their devices.
With the new feature, Livongo members have the ability to link their Apple, Fitbit or Samsung smartwatches to the company’s app to receive health information on their wrist and share activity information back with Livongo to better personalize activity and health suggestions.
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“By offering another way to access personalized health insights, we are able to more easily influence positive behavior change, which we know can lead to better health,” Livongo President Jennifer Schneider said in a statement.
Livongo is also using the smartwatch integration to offer new so-called “health challenges,” which are five-day programs that area meant to help members form healthier lifestyle habits through educational content, goal setting and progress tracking.
In an interview earlier this month, Livongo Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bimal Shah said a major focus for the company as it continues to build out its platform is ingesting new data streams to help inform how best to help patients at the individual level.
That ranges from health metrics, environmental information, sociodemographic data and now activity tracker data.
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“If I can push information to you and send a gentle reminder to take 10 minutes take a break from work and take a walk, the next day we can see if you actually did that,” Shah said. “If you didn’t, we can judge whether that was the right message at the right time and was it right behavior that you’re interested in.”
Shah said Livongo’s product differentiator is its ability to induct “small, bite-sized behavior changes” that can hopefully add up to better overall health outcomes.
From its initial focus on diabetes management, Livongo has branched out into areas like hypertension, diabetes prevention and behavioral health.
The company’s integration with smartwatches fits into its experiments with new avenues to engage members. Besides offering its own range of connected health devices including glucometers, scales and blood pressure monitors, Livongo has partnered with Amazon to build voice-powered applications which perform tasks like reading out blood glucose levels and health tips.
Livongo is a leader in the crowded chronic disease management space and claims 164,000 active users of its platform. Rumors of a planned 2019 IPO have raised the company’s profile even higher.
The company has raised around $240 million in funding and has more than 650 enterprise customers, mainly self-funded employers. A big focus for the company over the next year is growing its business with health plans like Cambia Health Solution, with other Blue plans as likely early partners.
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