The pandemic has accelerated the rise of telehealth, and consumers not only need standard health visits, but the ability to track their own health information independently. A new partnership announced by Boston-based Wellframe aims to do just that.
Wellframe makes software, including a mobile application, that allows consumers to track various health conditions, organize medication and receive advice from physicians and clinicians. Earlier this month, the company announced a partnership with Validic, a Durham, North Carolina-based maker of an online platform that organizes personal health data by creating images that help patients analyze health conditions.
The partnership will allow Validic’s medical data software to be put into Wellframe’s mobile application so that users can track their blood glucose levels.
Wellframe has been in the telehealth game since the early 2010’s. To date, the company has raised $45.2 million in funding, $20 million of which was raised in 2019 led by Blue Cross Blue Shield.
CEO Jake Sattelmair, who has a public health background with a focus in epidemiology, says his mission is to provide patients around-the-clock care that they otherwise would only get within the four walls of a clinic.
“We wanted to advance new ways of using technology to help people to feel connected and cared for and supported. We primarily focus on partnering with particular health plans, although we work with any healthcare organization who has a motivation to help people kind of in between those encounters,” Sattelmair said.
Validic is an ideal partner, he said, as both companies focus on using mobile technology to extend these therapeutic relationships.
“We're able to deliver care plans directly to patients or members on a mobile app that gives them day-to-day guidance around what they need to do,” Sattelmair said.
The partnership is initially offering glucometers for people with diabetes, but eventually will expand into other remote monitoring devices to capture different biometrics related to other conditions.
What makes Wellframe different from competitors and emerging telehealth platforms is the accessibility to the care management team, according to Sattelmair. Outside of collecting health information for users, Wellframe’s care management team gets day-to-day assistance as they need it to help understand their conditions.
“If you're a member and you need to get help with a question about your benefits, or you need to talk to someone in customer service, or need to see a physician — you'd be able to to access all those things in a really seamless manner,” Sattelmair said.
Despite Wellframe’s fast growth in recent years, Sattelmair believes that being based in Boston and building an organization like Wellframe relies heavily on Boston’s technical expertise in engineering, and product management and data science and design.
“We will keep our headquarters in Boston and expect to have a very strong presence here, indefinitely,” Sattelmair said.
