Like many startups, Oura’s mission has evolved over the years. It began as a sleep-focused wellness startup and has now grown into an $11 billion company carving out a role in health improvement and chronic condition management.
The company, which is based in Finland, began selling its wearable smart ring in 2015. Since then, Oura has sold more than 5.5 million rings — with half of its users now relying on the ring’s data to help manage a chronic condition, said Ricky Bloomfield, Oura’s chief medical officer, during an interview this month at Reuters’ MedTech USA conference in Boston.
“We’re being pulled into this world where it’s not just wellness — people really want to improve their health, and they want to do that in partnership with their doctors. They don’t want to just do it alone — so we feel an obligation to help make that connection in a way that allows the data to cross that continuum, and ideally do it at a lower cost over time,” he stated.
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He noted that Oura has added several features to prompt behavior change and aid early disease detection.
For instance, Oura’s “cardiovascular age” feature uses pulse wave velocity to assess someone’s arterial stiffness, which is often an indicator of cardiac disease. Oura relies on its own data to compare the stiffness of a user’s arteries to that of their peers, showing a younger age if their arteries are healthier than average or an older age if they are less healthy.
“We’ve actually seen many stories where if someone sees their cardiovascular age is high and they don’t want it to be, that is the trigger that helps them change their behavior. They think, ‘Well, I want to see my kids grow up and graduate from college’ — and all the things that they might want to do. That’s the trigger that tells them ‘Okay, now I want to start exercising, I need to eat better and I need to lose some weight,’” Bloomfield explained.
Another feature he highlighted, called the “symptom radar” tool, detects subtle deviations in vital signs. This tool was used during Oura’s Covid-19 study in partnership with the NBA, which helped ensure players could be tested and cleared quickly so games could continue safely. Bloomfield noted that the model enabled earlier detection of infections — on average 2.75 days before a positive test.
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Oura’s ring has also prompted users to seek care sooner than they otherwise would have for serious conditions like lymphoma and appendicitis, Bloomfield said.
For example, earlier this year, Paralympian Hunter Woodhall received an alert from his Oura ring indicating major signs of illness, which prompted him to see a doctor. He was diagnosed with appendicitis before his appendix ruptured, allowing him to receive care before the situation became dangerous.
This illustrates how Oura is moving beyond individual wellness and into the broader healthcare system, Bloomfield pointed out.
He noted Oura’s expanding work with the greater healthcare system, including a recent partnership with Missouri-based Medicare Advantage plan Essence Healthcare in which members are provided a free ring.
He said the company wants to pursue more of these collaborations, with the goal of integrating more Oura data into healthcare workflows — in ways that are clinically meaningful, not burdensome, for physicians, Bloomfield emphasized.
As it continues to grow, Oura maintains a focus on building trust, Bloomfield added. The company does this through clinical studies, as well as education for both consumers and healthcare providers.
Over the past decade, clinicians have become far more accepting of wearable data because they have been seeing it validated in real-world cases. Bloomfield explained that most clinicians can recount a time when a wearable, like an Apple watch or Oura ring, detected physiological changes, such as irregular heart rate or poor sleeping patterns, which were later confirmed through medical evaluation.
As he looks to the future, Bloomfield said he expects the company to push deeper into clinical use — and help determine whether wearable data can have a positive, long-term impact on patient outcomes and healthcare workflows.
Photo: Yuichiro Chino, Getty Images