Fitbit introduces “Fitbit Group Health”
This post was originally published on the Fitbit press site. It has been adapted from its original format.
Fitbit today announced the launch of Fitbit Group Health, which brings together the offerings Fitbit provides to corporate wellness partners, weight management leaders, insurers, and clinical researchers. The company is also introducing Wellness Insighter, a new service for its customers that helps corporate wellness leaders validate corporate wellness investments with data that can be compared against that of industry peers.
As the leader in the connected health and fitness market and a trusted brand in the industry, Fitbit has driven innovation in corporate wellness programs over the last six years with the corporate wellness offering now adopted by over 70 of the Fortune 500.
“We began our partnership with Fitbit last year and offered Fitbit devices to over 340,000 team members to help increase their activity levels,” said Cara McNulty, Senior Director and Head of Population Health & Team Member Wellness at Target Corporation. “Our wellness program, which promoted some healthy competition in a company-wide step challenge, motivated our team members to move more and live healthier lifestyles, resulting in our top teams donating over $1,000,000 to local wellness non-profits of their choice.”
In recent years, Fitbit has also partnered with a myriad of stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem, such as health plans, weight management organizations, and academic researchers. Fitbit Group Health will bring the corporate wellness business and the company’s additional population health channels together under one umbrella.
“The launch of Fitbit Group Health is a natural evolution for us, given our success in the corporate wellness category. It positions the company to integrate more deeply into the population health space,” said Woody Scal, Fitbit’s Chief Business Officer. “With corporate wellness, we’ve already shown that our connected platform can drive higher engagement and better health behaviors in companies and communities. With that experience under our belts, we’ve already begun expanding the reach of our technology through other channels, such as health plans.”
Fitbit Group Health provides software and services across four categories:
- Corporate Wellness: For the last six years, Fitbit has empowered people in the workplace to lead healthier, more active lives by providing the technology and services that help organizations, such as Barclays, Boston College, Emory University and Emory Healthcare, Godaddy.com, Houston Methodist and Target to develop more engaging corporate wellness programs. Fitbit added over 1,000 customers over the last couple of years and has longstanding partnerships with leading corporate wellness organizations such as StayWell, Virgin Pulse and The Vitality Group.
- Weight Management: Partnerships with Fitbit allow weight management leaders to use Fitbit data and technology to engage with their program participants in new ways. For example, a preferred partnership with Weight Watchers, the world's leading commercial provider of weight management services, enables members to accurately track activity, seamlessly translate that activity into FitPoints™, and dynamically set goals to increase activity over time. Additionally, Fitbit’s partnership with Medifast has enabled people to remain accountable and more effectively make behavior changes using their Fitbit data.
- Insurance: Fitbit partners with leading health insurers, such as Anthem, Premera Blue Cross, Humana Vitality and Optum/United as part of health and wellness incentives, as well as condition care programs for health plan members. Additionally, Fitbit has helped innovative life insurance companies such as John Hancock in the US and Sompo in Japan which is initially piloting a staff wellness initiative using Fitbit trackers, and is in discussions for a potential future program for its members.
- Health Research: Fitbit has been used in over 100 research studies to date with academic research institutions, such as the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins. Most recently, the company announced a partnership with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to support a study that looks at the impact of physical activity and weight loss on breast cancer recurrence by having study participants track their activity and weight loss to share with health coaches using Fitbit Charge HR activity trackers, Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale, and a subscription to FitStar by Fitbit.
Fitbit launches new corporate wellness service
Fitbit continues to innovate around corporate wellness and has announced the introduction of its Wellness Insighter offering, available to Fitbit Group Health customers in late 2016. Wellness Insighter data can be used to evaluate and optimize program design. It can also help HR leaders demonstrate value on investment by showcasing the effectiveness of their workplace wellness efforts and by comparing their program’s metrics against industry peers. Delivered in partnership with Ipsos, one of the world’s leading market research firms, Wellness Insighter provides time-strapped corporate wellness and HR leaders the ability to easily deploy surveys, collect data, and analyze employee sentiment.
“Partnering with Fitbit got our employee population moving and more engaged in our wellness program,” said Selena Baker, Nutrition Counselor at Ohio University, a participant of the Fitbit Wellness Insighter pilot program. “With Fitbit Wellness Insighter, our employees had the opportunity to communicate their perceptions of and changes that resulted from the program. Their input has significantly changed our approach to activity, challenge cadence, and employee communications tactics.”
These offerings are introduced as part of Fitbit’s first annual Fitbit Captivate Summit, taking place June 7-9, 2016 in San Francisco. Fitbit Captivate Summit brings together top leaders and experts in health, wellness and human resources for three days of keynote sessions and hands-on workshops around the evolving state of corporate wellness and digital health.
