Vida, a live coaching app with a focus on health and wellness is in collaboration with drug manufacturer AstraZeneca to create a new program for heart attack patients called Day-by-Day.
Like many live coaching platforms, including Rise and Nudge, Vida pairs users with a coach to help them reach their goals. Most of the coaching is for weight loss. However, the app also focuses on overall well-being and will refer users to other coaches with a focus on things like diabetes and blood pressure control or reducing stress.
The AstraZeneca Day-by-Day program works by referring heart attack patients to use a Vida coach. Vida coaching fees are normally $49 per month. However, AstraZeneca will pick up the fee for patients in participating hospitals and health facilities and who meet the standard criteria.
A majority of those on Vida use the app for weight loss and the site markets itself toward that audience. Vida recently partnered with Daily Burn to bring in even more users looking for fitness and weight loss coaching.
We really believe that continuous management of chronic conditions will significantly lower cost. Stephanie Tilenius, Vida CEO
The AstraZeneca partnership is a smart move on the part of Vida as it continues to grow a base beyond just weight loss coaching. The startup recently teamed up with DailyBurn for a program that gives workout fanatics access to Vida coaches at a discount. However, Vida CEO Stephanie Tilenius told TechCrunch that her main goal is to build a platform for chronic care.
“That’s the single biggest cost-driver of health care in the country, and we really believe that continuous management of chronic conditions will significantly lower cost,” Tilenius said.
Vida is looking at other partnerships beyond weight loss and fitness at the moment but declined to mention with whom those might be next. However, the pharmaceutical company approached Vida about teaming up for this one, not the other way around.
“This program represents our commitment to impacting health outcomes in ways beyond the medicines we make, to creating more holistic, personalized, two-way engagements with patients during times when they need it most,” AstraZeneca’s VP of global commercial excellence John McCarthy said in a statement. “We are committed to developing innovative solutions to current and future healthcare challenges that ultimately impact patient health.”
The program to digitally hook heart attack patients up with health coaches seems to be a first. The new partnership with AstraZeneca also places Vida in a quasi-competitive state with both nutrition coaching apps and on-demand patient care apps such as HealthTap and Doctor on Demand.
So far the Day-by-Day program is only available from certain health facilities, including at Duke University. The plan is to roll the program out nationally after some initial testing.
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