Credit: StarHub
StarHub, in partnership with Alexandra Hospital and ConnectedLife with Fitbit, has launched a digital health service dubbed LifeHub+.
The tie-up draws on data insights to build closer ties between patients and their care team, especially with family doctors who are the first line of care, and improve the management of patients’ health and lifestyles with timely interventions via a personalised health plan focused on the prevention and management of chronic diseases.
“We believe in the massive potential of technology in transforming healthcare and improving patient experience," stated Johan Buse, chief of Consumer Business Group at StarHub. "Aligned with our DARE+ strategy, we are leveraging our expertise in connectivity, to create a digital health service that helps doctors channel attentive care and enroll their consenting patients into a holistic health plan."
Users can choose to share their Fitbit data through the LifeHub+ app, and receive “dynamic” health scores, data alerts, and metrics which give them “simple, clear” insights into their health for tracking and daily improvement.
This data includes Fitbit metrics such as steps, exercise, sleep patterns, heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature variation, breathing rate and oxygen saturation (SpO2).
Integrated into the app via the public WebAPI, the data and user-recorded blood pressure and blood glucose from third party devices are combined in the LifeHub+ app and used to generate a wellness score.
Future features being developed by ConnectedLife for integration into LifeHub+ include lifestyle questionnaires and disease risk assessment tools.
“We continue to collaborate with ConnectedLife to facilitate engagement with strategic partners like StarHub and Alexandra Hospital to support solutions that play a key role in building the digital health ecosystem in Singapore,” asserted Steve Morley, director of International and Asia Pacific at Fitbit Health Solutions.
“This programme allows users to manage access to their health and wellness insights digitally and share with preferred GPs, clinics and the hospital, if they choose to do so. Leveraging Fitbit enables a better and more connected digital health experience.”
A first in the market, customers can also grant access to a pre-programmed care team comprising their family doctor or General Practitioner (GP), a health coach from Alexandra Hospital, caregivers, and even doctors from other healthcare institutions, to access their health data via a dedicated secure LifeHub+ dashboard.
The app can also be programmed to nudge users to improve their health, for example, to reduce sedentary time throughout the day, and can be used to toggle reminders on medication, exercise, or scheduling medical check-ups.
Aimed at curating a healthy lifestyle for patients who are at-risk or have simple chronic health conditions, like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, the family doctor or GP and Alexandra Hospital’s health coach who receive these wellness insights, can choose to use them to holistically manage and support primary care patients.
“With LifeHub+, clinicians can access the latest health data and evaluate their patients’ wellness quickly and accurately, and intervene early when they discover risk factors," Buse added. "Besides guiding users to lead healthier lives, we are enriching community support in a digital ecosystem, bridging family doctors, hospitals, and patients’ family members to deliver integrated proactive care."
Besides helping to connect GPs, from mostly the Queenstown and western region of Singapore, as well as being a referring hospital to which joint escalated care may be provided to the GPs, Alexandra Hospital is also onboarding its own metabolic clinic patients to help prevent simple diseases from deteriorating into complex chronic diseases.
Health coaches from Alexandra Hospital will offer digital health interventions through the LifeHub+ app by providing personalised health plans with lifestyle and dietary modifications.
“The digital health revolution has arrived. Wearable health trackers which are linked to health and care teams in the hospital and the community can help empower users to proactively manage their chronic conditions before deterioration,” observed Dr Jason Phua, CEO of Alexandra Hospital.
As part of the launch, 300 eligible patients from Alexandra Hospital and GP clinics with preventable chronic health risks will be among the first to be onboarded to LifeHub+ and have their wellness activities and certain metrics monitored by Alexandra Hospital health coaches and their GPs.
While it is a complimentary offering for doctors, patients have to subscribe to ConnectedCare, a plan under LifeHub+ through their healthcare providers at $9.99 monthly.
The first 300 LifeHub+ subscribers onboarded through partner GPs will receive a Fitbit device and access to ConnectedCare at no cost for the initial 12 months, allowing them to channel support from their care team digitally.
Currently, more than 30 GPs have expressed interest through Alexandra Hospital to serve patients through this new service. Furthermore, StarHub has also stated intentions to scale this rollout with its partners from ConnectedLife with Fitbit and Alexandra Hospital and more GPs.
“Alexandra Hospital is a designated sandbox for new digital health and technology innovations," added Dr Alexander Yip, a gastroenterologist and integrated care consultant who is the Clinical Director of Alexandra Hospital's Healthcare Redesign. "We are constantly looking to implement new technology-enabled care models to provide better care to all our patients in the hospital and community.
“This new digital health initiative leverages wearables to provide a rich source of information on the lifestyle of our patients, which helps our doctors and health coaches in Alexandra Hospital improve patients’ health holistically through timely lifestyle interventions."
