Hello Heart adds diabetes management, activity tracker to cardio health app

By Dave Muoio
04:04 pm
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Hello Heart — maker of an app-driven platform designed to help employees manage hypertension, heart rate, and cardiovascular health — has announced the release of a new service for diabetes management.

Both the cardiovascular and diabetes services are housed within the larger Hello Heart app, explained CEO Maayan Cohen, a move that represent the company’s shifting approach from a single-disease platform to one focused on managing the most prevalent chronic diseases.

“A lot of our patients that have hypertension also have diabetes, so we want to manage all of their health in one place. Initial results are very promising,” Cohen told MobiHealthNews. “For our clients that [have] already seen a great success with using Hello Heart for their population, it makes sense for them to enroll the second [most prevalent] condition using the same module as well.”

With the addition of the new diabetes management offering and other features, the Hello Heart app now hosts a range of tools to help individuals track various aspects of their health, including blood pressure, weight, blood sugar levels, and activity. The service also includes a tool to improve medication adherence, another that will automatically import clinical lab results, and personalized prompts to drive healthy behavior changes.

Alongside a discussion of the Hello Heart app’s newest features, Cohen also touted clinical data published in the journal Health Information Science and Systems at the end of 2017 that  showed a significant decrease in blood pressure associated with use of the app.

This trial, which was led by UCLA researchers, enrolled and tracked 5,115 patients who used the app to self-monitor their blood pressure. Of these, 74 percent recorded their blood pressure for two or more weeks. Significant declines in blood pressure were observed among 23 percent of those who used the app for four weeks, and among 24 percent of those who used it for 22 weeks. Among those who reported hypertension at baseline, 57 percent who used the app for four weeks achieved blood pressure normalization, compared to 69 percent of those who used it for 22 weeks.

“Hello Heart is the first and currently only smartphone solution that has a peer-reviewed study for hypertension and heart health management. We’re very proud of that.” Cohen said. “A lot of wellness solutions are trying to get patients to improve their [health], but there’s a very big gap between intention … and actual clinical outcomes that are proven and validated. I think it gives us a lot of credibility.”

Since launch, Hello Heart has enrolled more than 80,000 patients in its system, according to the company, and boasts several self-insured Fortune 500 clients as customers. The digital health company’s website boasts potential savings of $2,072 per participant per year, and a positive ROI within 12 months.

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