The digitalization of healthcare is nearly complete. From cloud-based medical records to digital pills, nearly every aspect of the medical industry has been transformed.
Medical processes and medical products will generate 2,314 Exabytes of data by 2020. Connecting patients and doctors with all that medical information is the job of digital health companies.
In this article, we look at the following 15 leading digital health companies that are bridging the data divide between you and your medical information.
These are not necessarily the largest players in digital healthcare, but they each offer something unique to the industry.
Digital Health App Companies
As you might expect, digital health apps provide users access to their medical records, medical appointment information, and prescriptions. But providing access to Protected Health Information (PHI) is just the beginning.
Apps can also make telemedicine possible by helping doctors diagnose patients in remote regions of the globe. Fitness apps offer yet another level of healthcare, helping users to better manage their own health.
Meditech
Enterprise Health Record (EHR) vendor, Meditech, announced this month it is launching a new app development environment, Meditech Greenfield.
Greenfield provides an open space for Meditech customers and 3rd-party developers to create EHR apps.
The platform not only to expands customers’ access to Meditech EHR services, but also helps care providers to access EHR data through their own platforms.
Improving EHR interoperability benefits Meditech, the healthcare providers they serve, and patients.
Fitbit
One of the biggest players in the field, Fitbit announced that it has formed a partnership with Google. The collaboration will better enable Fitbit users to share their data with healthcare providers.
Fitbit brings the wearable device and the mobile Fitbit app, and Google brings its Cloud Healthcare platform for data storage and access.
The companies also plan to collaborate on ways to help users better manage chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension. Fitbit’s recent acquisition of Twine Health, a well-established health coaching platform, will be key in building a wellness product.
mySugr
According to the World Health Organization, diabetes is a global epidemic. With more than 422 million individuals suffering from diabetes worldwide, the need for self-management of the deadly disease cannot be overstated.
This Australian 2012 startup offers an app-based solution for monitoring blood glucose levels. Users receive a high-quality blood glucose meter, testing supplies, and access to the mySugr app and platform.
By syncing the glucometer to the user’s phone, blood sugar levels can be logged, along with associated dietary and activity information. The app provides estimated HbA1c results, which are key to long-term control of diabetes.
Users can easily share logged test results with their doctors.
The digital healthcare ecosystem must include well-designed and effective apps like mySugr, if self-managed healthcare is going to be more than a buzzword.
Digital Health and Wellness Companies
Digital health-management companies help users to manage their own health. These three examples represent the best of them.
HealthVault
For those who don’t know, Microsoft isn’t just a software company anymore. Among the tech giant’s many platforms is HealthVault.
HealthVault allows users to gather, store, use, and share their personal health information. Adding health records, tracking health trends, and sharing your health information is done easily and securely.
Microsoft provides HealthVault solutions for both patient and healthcare providers.
Samsung Health
Samsung Health is more than just another fitness app. It is a complete fitness ecosystem.
Whether you use the Samsung Health app and your smartphone, or the Samsung Galaxy Watch, you can track your progress with any of 39 exercises, check on a prescription, access medical information, chat with a certified doctor.
The intuitive user interface categorizes options, so you are only a few taps away from the feature you want to use.
Extra features are available on the Samsung smartwatch, including the ability to track heart rate. More impressive, the Galaxy Watch can detect which exercise you are performing, and notes when you switch to another one.
Another thing the Apple Watch can do that the smartphone app cannot is track your sleep cycles. Advanced accelerometers and complex algorithms detect that you are sleeping, rather than merely watching TV or reading.
Users can purchase wearables, accessories, and health-related products and services within the platform.
Samsung collaborates with a growing list of partners to expand the platform, and offers a complete set of SDKs for app and web development.
The Samsung personalized digital health platform is used by 65 million fitness-conscious users worldwide.
Apple Watch
You might not think of Apple when you think of health and wellness, but they want you to.
In September 2018, Apple upgraded its popular Apple Watch to Series 4, tacking on a whole bunch of health and fitness goodies.
Workout coaching comes standard, as you would expect.
What you might not expect is the automatic heart rate monitor that alerts you if your heart rate is too low or too high.
Or the fall detection feature, which can call emergency services with your location if you become unresponsive after a fall.
Or the first consumer ECG, which can record and store your heart rhythm.
Or the atrial fibrillation detector that can detect early signs of heart failure.
Yes, the Apple Watch is chocked full of surprises.
Of course, the watch doubles as a cell phone, has GPS, and plays music, too.
According to Apple CEO Jeff Williams, the Apple Watch 4 is the “ultimate guardian for your health.”
Kudos to Apple. The Apple Watch Series 4 does more than tell time, it may also add years to your life.
Digital Healthcare Marketing Companies
Effective marketing of today’s digitized healthcare services requires more than creativity. It also requires a deep understanding of what “digital healthcare” means.
The services caregivers provide, how those services are delivered, and how patients like to communicate must be considered when formulating a marketing plan.
The marketing agencies listed below are typical of what digital healthcare providers need to thrive in the digital era.
Omnicom Health Group
Boldly identifying itself as the “largest healthcare marketing and communications group in the world,” Omnicom Health Group includes more than 55 agency offices around the globe.
The company specializes in marketing for health, medicine, and wellness industries worldwide. Multi-channel marketing targets customers at every step of their healthcare journey.
One of the group’s key advantages is the diversity of talent at its disposal. Experts from multiple agencies can collaborate on your medical marketing project, bringing a wealth of varied experience and ideas to the table.
Publicis Health
Officially known as Publicis Healthcare Communications Group, or PHCG, Publicis Health manages world-class marketing agencies that cater to the healthcare industry.
Advertising, digital marketing, branding, market access, message delivery, and communications are among the services the PHCG network offers.
Publicis Health offerings reflect a clear awareness of the changes affecting the healthcare industry. The group has 5,500 employees supporting 12 agency brands, making them the third largest advertising and media company in the world.
Scorpion Healthcare Internet Marketing
You don’t marketing digital healthcare with non-digital solutions. On the contrary, effective marketing leverages all the digital tools available to connect care providers with their customers. Scorpion does that.
With offices in California, Texas, and New York, Scorpion has a full tool box of digital marketing tools, and they know how to use it.
Scorpion helps hospitals, healthcare groups, urgent-care clinics, and addiction centers to market their services.
Scorpion offers list of more than a half dozen marketing innovations. The company website lists the following:
Marketing System, Content Management System, Healthcare Management Systems, Advertising Machine, Reporting & Analytics, Dynamic Landing Pages, Variation Optimization, and Machine Learning.
This agency’s internal focus on technology makes them well-equipped to market the data-centric healthcare industry.
Digital Health Pharmaceutical Companies
The digitization of pharma is nothing new. Pharmacies have used computers to manage patient records for decades. Thanks to recent advances in medtech, however, the pharmaceutical industry now has new ways to serve their customers.
Digital Pharmacist
With 7,500 pharmacies onboard, Digital Pharmacist provides pharmacies the tools they need to engage their clients more effectively than ever before.
Automated voice, text, and email messages alert patients when they are due for a refill. Branded HIPAA-compliant websites help pharmacies reach their market, while providing secure patient portals. And apps enable patients to request refills on the go.
FInally, CRM digital marketing solutions and interactive educational classes keep patients connected and informed.
PillPack
40 million Americans take more than 5 prescriptions per day. Half of them don’t take their medications as prescribed. PillPack aims to change that.
More than just another online pharmacy, PillPack delivers medications in sealed packets. Since each packet has printed the time and date its contents are to be taken, mistakes are minimized.
Now for the technology.
PillPack services are powered by the PharmacyOS platform, which comes with plenty of technology tucked under the hood.
APIs help drug manufacturers and insurance companies improve their understanding of the market, and can help control product abuse. PillPack algorithms ensure medications are refilled on time, and that prescription changes are reflected in the next refill.
PharmacyOS helps pharmacists and customers manage multiple daily medications. The software-driven platform proactively identifies and solves most common problems patients encounter with their prescriptions.
An intuitive dashboard and mobile app keep customers in control of their medications. And customer support is available 24/7 — try and get that from the corner drug store.
Abilify MyCite
Digital technology might not replace pills any time soon, but at least it can make them smarter.
In November of 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first “smart pill.” The pill, called Abilify MyCite, pairs the schizophrenia drug Abilify with an embedded digital sensor.
When the pill is ingested, the sensor-equipped tablet sends a signal to a patch worn on the body. The patch, in turn, sends data to a paired smartphone, where an app relays the information to caregivers.
By notifying the patient’s doctor or family member that the medication was not taken on schedule, a wellness call can be made to the patient.
Abilify MyCite might not excite you, but it paves the way for more advanced smart pills to come our way. Who knows, perhaps pills of the future will contact emergency services directly if the user overdoses.
Digital Health Technology Companies
By our definition, digital health technology companies do more than offer a technology solution to the healthcare industry. Instead, they push the boundaries of technology, and help define the digital health industry. The companies listed below do that.
Osso VR
Designed for surgeons by surgeons, the Osso VR virtual surgery simulator bridges the gap between surgical training and hands-on experience.
The Osso VR platform enables surgeons and medical students to train on cutting-edge procedures, without picking up the scalpel.
The surgical tools — and the patient — are virtual, but the learning experience is real. Compatible with Oculus and HTC Vive, the VR simulator lets users practice as many times as necessary, before performing the procedure on a training cadaver or live person.
Training on the Osso VR simulator has also proven to give the best outcome for the patient, once the surgeon performs the actual procedure.
The Boston-based startup focuses on closing training gaps for orthopedic and spine therapies. In the future, the company will expand its platform to cover additional procedures.
Founded in 2016, Osso VR has already forged partnerships with top U.S. medical residency programs.
Having gotten the attention of the U.S. Department of Education, the company was selected as a MedTech Innovator and top education simulation company — definitely an exciting company to watch.
SentiAR
Like VR, AR has found its place at the operating table. SentiAR transforms the surgical experience, projecting a 3D real-time floating hologram of the patient’s actual anatomy in the space above the patient.
The platform utilizes the Microsoft HoloLens for the heads-up display.
Designed to aid in the treatment and analysis of cardiac arrhythmias, SentiAR converts data from MRI, CT, and real-time catheter mapping location outputs into an interactive, floating 3D model of the patient’s heart.
SentiAR is currently working on Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. In the meantime, the St. Louis startup has been invited by Microsoft to participate in their Mixed Reality Partnership Program (MRPP).
Xealth
In digital publishing, it is said that content is king. Xealth thinks the same is true when it comes to digital health.
This Seattle startup enables doctors to prescribe educational and disease-management digital content for their patients. A cardiologist prescribing a video on heart-healthy dieting for a recovering heart patient is one example.
The value in delivering highly-targeted digital content to patients is realized in large cost savings, and improved patient outcomes.
The company has already partnered with some of America’s largest healthcare providers to help them serve up digital content to their patients.
How Ignite Can Help
Digital healthcare is built upon a myriad of technologies. Mobile apps, blockchain storage solutions, patient portals, and complex cloud-based platforms represent but a few of the technologies involved.
If your vertical plans include digital healthcare solutions, you need a technology partner that understands them all.
At Ignite, we do.
Ignite offers world-class outsource development solutions to companies across the globe. From concept to post-launch support, we are right there with you every step of the journey.
Our six R&D labs across Europe enable us to support you efficiently, no matter where you are.
Why not contact us, today, for a no-cost consultation?