Following a successful joint pilot, Onduo’s virtual diabetes care management has now been made available to “most” of Highmark Health’s adult membership with diagnosed Type 2 diabetes, the companies announced Tuesday.
Part of a six-year partnership announced by the integrated delivery network and Verily’s digital disease management company in early 2021, the arrangement will see enrolled members assigned a care coordinator who will develop and guide them along a personalized diabetes management plan.
On the tech side, new enrollees in the Well360 Diabetes Management program may receive a smart glucose monitor and other supplies such as an at-home A1C testing kit, lancing device and testing strips to track and record their readings. Enrolled members will also be able to tap a “virtual health clinic” offering remote prescriptions, access to endocrinologists and care coordination handled by primary care physicians, according to the companies.
“We’re thrilled to be offering our first Living Health solution to a broad population of Highmark members,” Karen Hanlon, executive vice president and chief operations officer of Highmark Health, said in a statement. “As an on-demand access point to care, Well360 Diabetes Management is one milestone on Highmark Health’s journey to unite payers, providers, tech innovators and the community to build a health ecosystem that works better for everyone.”
According to the announcement, Onduo will be reaching out to qualified members about enrolling either online or through the company’s mobile app at no additional cost. Employers with Highmark Health coverage that are interested in rolling out the program to members can contact their client managers for more details.
The companies said a joint pilot of the program saw an average A1C improvement of 2.7 points among 92% of participants whose baseline A1C was 9% or greater. Further, pilot participants who reported losing weight dropped an average 13.3 pounds, equal to 5.7% of their starting weight.
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“We believe that Well360 Diabetes Management will lead Highmark’s members with diabetes to engage more proactively—and with actionable information—in a two-way dialogue with clinicians, who can intervene to improve short- and long-term health outcomes,” Tony Farah, M.D., executive vice president and chief medical and clinical transformation officer at Highmark Health, said in a statement. “Eliminating fragmentation in health care can do more than improve traditional health outcomes and costs; it can reduce the everyday stress of managing chronic conditions, engage patients in whole-person health and improve their quality of life.”
Pittsburgh-based Highmark Health covers more than 6 million total members across four states through its subsidiaries and affiliates. The organization is also the parent company of 14-hospital Allegheny Health Network in western Pennsylvania.
Massachusetts-based Onduo was launched in 2016 as a big-budget joint venture between Alphabet’s Verily and Sanofi, although the latter gave up its leadership role in the company in late 2019. Initially launched with tech-driven diabetes management in mind, Onduo has since expanded its virtual platform into other disease areas such as mental and behavioral health.
Highmark Health teamed up with Alphabet in December 2020 with the launch of a six-year strategic partnership that would tap Google Cloud’s analytics, artificial intelligence and cloud expertise for digital health initiatives across Highmark’s payer and provider efforts.
This was followed up a few months later by news that Highmark would be tapping Onduo to build the virtual chronic disease monitoring and insights program being rolled out this week.