Long gone are the days of needing to meet face-to-face with a clinician to get a prescription, view lab results or even complete physical therapy exercises. Now, those tasks can be completed remotely and all in the same place: Omada Health’s digital health platform.
Omada initially launched the platform to guide patients with chronic health conditions through the process of changing their behavior to improve their health, with the help of tracking tools and informational guides for weight management, daily activity levels and more.
Since then, however, the San Francisco-based company has slowly but surely transformed its health hub into a one-stop shop encompassing the entire spectrum of virtual care.
This expansion has been backed by more than $250 million in venture funding. Most recently, in May 2020, Omada received a $57 million investment from investment fund Perceptive Advisors, about half of which was then funneled into additional growth with the acquisition of virtual physical therapy startup Physera.
The two newest additions to the platform integrate computer vision technology and telehealth consultations to boost Omada’s digital offerings for patients with diabetes, hypertension and musculoskeletal conditions.
The first transforms the platform into a full-blown digital cardiometabolic clinic by allowing diabetes and hypertension patients to request virtual consultations with physicians directly in the app. Doctors will be able to prescribe and manage medications, order lab tests and review test results within the platform, in between face-to-face meetings.
Doctors can also tap other patient information gathered by the Omada platform, including continuous glucose monitor and other device readings.
The physician-guided care program will be added to Omada’s pre-diabetes and weight management, behavioral health and musculoskeletal programs in 2022.
In the meantime, Omada has already beefed up its musculoskeletal care offerings with the second of the recent upgrades, which integrates computer vision artificial intelligence into physical therapy treatments.
Though other virtual care platforms offer remote physical therapy sessions, most rely on sensors or wearable devices to track patients’ movements and progress, many of which require extra time to input and analyze collected data. Omada’s platform uses AI to analyze movements and range of motion via video, generating precise measurements almost immediately.
The virtual physical therapy program will be available on Cigna offshoot Evernorth’s digital health formulary, as well as on the Omada platform.
Those two upgrades are likely just the beginning of a potential flood of new features. Earlier this month, the company unveiled its Omada Insights Lab, focused on using a decade’s worth of user-submitted health data to develop new and long-lasting interventions.
“Personalized and effective digital care is incredibly important, especially in the wake of COVID-19,” Ryan Quan, the company’s data science director, said in a statement. “As healthcare visits were delayed, so was the collection of patient data which informs healthcare outcomes. That’s why Omada Insights Lab is so crucial.”
Quan continued, “The Omada Insights Lab has and continues to learn from this rich history of virtual interactions to reinforce the approaches that are the most effective for the long-term health of our members and change the unit economics of care delivery.”