LifeScan, a world leader in blood glucose monitoring serving more than 20 million people with diabetes, and Fitbit, announced a collaboration to offer people with diabetes a more complete view of how lifestyle factors like daily activity, nutrition and sleep can impact blood glucose levels, while also providing tools that can help lead to healthy lifestyle changes.
Diabetes is one of the fastest growing health challenges of the 21st century and we believe that equipping people with new and convenient approaches to tracking diet, activity, weight and blood glucose is a critical component in effectively changing the course of the disease, said Dr. Elizabeth Holt, Head of Global Medical, Clinical, and Safety, LifeScan. Connecting OneTouch blood glucose monitoring data with Fitbit wellness tools and insights is an important step in guiding patients to healthy lifestyle choices that promote improvement in health outcomes.
The new collaboration provides more holistic support through connectivity between the OneTouch Reveal® diabetes management and Fitbit apps.
LifeScan’s OneTouch Reveal® app uses a cloud-based digital ecosystem to deliver a powerful combination of data, technology, and insights for improved diabetes management, with the ability to link people to healthcare providers. Through this collaboration people will receive a Fitbit Inspire 2™ and access to Fitbit Premium which provides guided programs, hundreds of workouts, mindfulness content, a wellness report, and more personalized insights in the Fitbit health metrics dashboard – all to help people with diabetes move more, manage stress, sleep better and eat well. People will be able to sync the OneTouch Reveal® and Fitbit apps so that OneTouch blood glucose data can be viewed alongside metrics tracked by Fitbit, giving people the choice to access their information across both apps.
The powerful combination of OneTouch and Fitbit offerings will provide more meaningful personalized support, whether your goal is keeping your blood sugar under control, getting more active, or eating healthier, said Val Asbury, LifeScan president and chief executive officer. Our collaboration with Fitbit is an important part of a larger digital ecosystem of connected solutions and services LifeScan is creating to help support a healthy lifestyle for the millions of people with diabetes who count on OneTouch products every day.
According to the CDC1, 33 to 50 percent of people with diabetes experience diabetes distress – overwhelming feelings that may cause them to slip into unhealthy habits, stop checking blood sugars or skip appointments with their healthcare team. Additionally, a recent report2 shows that adding Fitbit to a diabetes intervention program can lead to further improvements in fasting blood sugar, hemoglobin A1c, and LDL cholesterol.
At Fitbit, we have spent 14 years empowering people to live healthier lives, and we’ve seen firsthand how our products, software and services can help people better manage their overall health and wellbeing, including diabetes and prediabetes, said Amy McDonough, Managing Director and General Manager of Fitbit Health Solutions at Google. Working in tandem with LifeScan, we are creating a solution that both consumers and healthcare providers can choose as a tool to inspire behavior change, provide a more comprehensive view of health and wellness in between doctor visits and ultimately lead to better disease management.
The full LifeScan and Fitbit collaboration benefits will be available through OneTouch® Solutions – available first to consumers in the U.S. starting this fall and then offered to healthcare providers and payors as a reimbursed adjudicated option in early 2022. OneTouch® Solutions is a portal designed to offer a choice of support, guidance, and digital tools to help people with diabetes thrive in their own way.
NOTES 1 https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managing/mental-health.html 2 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/integrating-fitbit-wearable-devices-into-diabetes-care-leads-to-significant-improvements-in-blood-glucose-and-hba1c-finds-health2sync-clinical-study-in-taiwan-1029799437
