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Inside Oura's Counsel Health Integration: Consumer AI and the Front Door to Care · The Strategy Catalyst Dispatch

• 0:00
  Ricky Bloomfield: And if you look at the symbol of healthcare for over a hundred years has been the stethoscope.
• 0:04
  Ricky Bloomfield: That's the thing all clinicians have with them all the time.
• 0:08
  Ricky Bloomfield: it's this magical device that lets us peer into the body in some ways by, listening to what's happening.
• 0:14
  Ricky Bloomfield: And if I look into the future and someone were to ask me,"Well, what would be more valuable, a stethoscope or a wearable like Oura Ring?" No question, it's the Oura Ring.
• 0:22
  Ricky Bloomfield: I would much rather have twenty-four/seven data, three hundred and sixty-five days a year than, a thirty-second, snapshot from a stethoscope once a year.
• 0:35
  Anika (2): Welcome to the Strategy Catalyst Dispatch, a podcast from the Strategy Catalyst team at the Health Management Academy.
• 0:41
  Anika (2): I'm your host, Anika Rashid and each episode we'll explore The trends and insights shaping healthcare strategy today.
• 0:48
  Anika (2): Let's dive in.
• 0:55
  Anika: In June, Aura put a physician inside its app.
• 0:58
  Anika: Alongside the launch of its Ring five, the company announced a partnership with Council Health, an AI-enabled virtual care platform.
• 1:06
  Anika: The model is message-based.
• 1:08
  Anika: Council's medical AI answers questions and collects history, and a board-certified physician steps in on demand for diagnosis, prescriptions, referrals, and follow-up It began rolling out to eligible members June 16th through Aura Labs, the company's experimental tier So now a member sees something in their data or just has a question about it and starts talking to Advisor or as AI assistant in the app.
• 1:32
  Anika: An advisor can hand them to council's medical AI, and if there's a reason for a clinician to weigh in, one tap connects them to a physician, all of it over messaging, no appointment, and no video visit Health systems have spent the last two years building the internal case for AI.
• 1:49
  Anika: Consumers have also adopted AI on their own, in their own apps, at their own pace, and they're using it to make decisions about their health right now, and the trends in health tech wearables, like the Oura Ring, are evidence of that.
• 2:02
  Anika: Oura is not a small player doing this at the margins.
• 2:06
  Anika: More than five and a half million rings have been sold, and members wear them nearly around the clock The company's footprint in healthcare also keeps widening.
• 2:14
  Anika: Cigna clients began offering the ring as an employer wellness benefit late last year.
• 2:19
  Anika: Essence Healthcare, a Missouri Medicare Advantage plan, provides free rings to qualifying members and uses the data in its own clinical workflows.
• 2:28
  Anika: We spent a lot of time in the past talking about AI on the system side.
• 2:32
  Anika: So today I wanna look at it from the other direction.
• 2:35
  Anika: There are more wearables on more wrists and fingers than at any point in history, and the companies making them have stopped thinking of themselves just as device makers.
• 2:43
  Anika: They are building software, hiring clinicians, and forming partnerships across the healthcare landscape.
• 2:49
  Anika: And that's a meaningful shift in who's shaping how people engage with their own health, and they're putting that capability directly in consumers' hands.
• 2:57
  Anika: So joining me today is Dr.
• 2:58
  Anika: Ricky Bloomfield, chief medical officer at Aura.
• 3:01
  Anika: He was on the health software team at Apple for eight and a half years, leading the clinical and health informatics work, and before that was at the Duke University Health System leading mobile technology strategy.
• 3:12
  Anika: He also has a clinical background in internal medicine and pediatrics, as well as a background in clinical informatics.
• 3:18
  Anika: Dr.
• 3:19
  Anika: Ricky, thanks so much for joining me today.
• 3:21
  Ricky Bloomfield: It's great to be here.
• 3:22
  Ricky Bloomfield: Thanks for having me, Anika really excited to have this conversation today about our work with Council.
• 3:28
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: I wanna start with, what you're seeing on the consumer side, you've got millions of users wearing your ring every day.
• 3:36
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: What were you seeing in consumer behavior and how they engage with their health data, technology, and, most recently, AI, that told you that Oura should, move into partnering for care delivery?
• 3:49
  Ricky Bloomfield: we're seeing consumers want to take more control over their health.
• 3:53
  Ricky Bloomfield: our health system, has done a pretty good job over the years of helping people get better when they're sick.
• 3:59
  Ricky Bloomfield: it hasn't done quite as good of a job in helping people stay healthy before they get sick.
• 4:04
  Ricky Bloomfield: the incentives, usually aren't aligned as much there.
• 4:07
  Ricky Bloomfield: Of course, we have accountable care organizations of value-based care that can help with that.
• 4:12
  Ricky Bloomfield: but folks are looking for a way to do that on their own.
• 4:16
  Ricky Bloomfield: and we've seen them gravitate towards devices and experience that can help them with some of the basics, like how do I sleep better?
• 4:23
  Ricky Bloomfield: How do I eat better?
• 4:24
  Ricky Bloomfield: How do I make sure I get the activity that I need?
• 4:27
  Ricky Bloomfield: And that world has actually pulled us into more of the clinical side because, of course, all of these individuals are coming with their own medical background, with their own conditions that they might have.
• 4:39
  Ricky Bloomfield: It's not all just a bunch of healthy people.
• 4:41
  Ricky Bloomfield: These are all people who are either motivated to get healthier from, their baseline, or they might have a variety of conditions that they're trying to optimize for and have a strong foundation so they can continue to get the care that they need.
• 4:54
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so that's pulled us into this world where we actually have a number of features that provide notifications to users when something is going on.
• 5:01
  Ricky Bloomfield: One of those is our Symptom Radar notification, for example.
• 5:05
  Ricky Bloomfield: We just announced, and released two features in our Health Radar umbrella, one around blood pressure and one around sleep disturbances.
• 5:14
  Ricky Bloomfield: And when a notification is given to these individuals, they often have questions about, what's the next step for me?" And we provide a lot of that support.
• 5:22
  Ricky Bloomfield: We have an AI agent called Oura Advisor that provides very good advice, which we've worked hard on to make sure it's accurate, and, with appropriate guardrails.
• 5:31
  Ricky Bloomfield: But the next logical step is someone might need a prescription for something, or they might need a diagnosis confirmed, and that falls squarely in the area of healthcare and where a clinician needs to be their partner in helping them take that next step.
• 5:47
  Ricky Bloomfield: So working with Council was a logical next step for us.
• 5:51
  Ricky Bloomfield: and the key was that we wanted something that was fully integrated into the Oura experience.
• 5:56
  Ricky Bloomfield: we didn't want it to seem like you're being thrown out to, an experience that wasn't seamlessly, uh, connected to what they were already doing.
• 6:05
  Ricky Bloomfield: And that's why having a deeper partnership with a company like this is so important rather than a, more scattershot approach.
• 6:11
  Ricky Bloomfield: and we've been very happy with that so far.
• 6:15
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: as somebody who works with health systems but is also a user of healthcare myself, I think I can speak from experience that a lot of consumer frustrations come with fragmentation and,"Okay, I have this information.
• 6:28
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: now what do I do with it?
• 6:29
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: what's the next step?" And so unifying all of that into one place I can imagine is really resonant with your users Give me sort of the broad strokes.
• 6:40
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: So a user, sees something interesting in their data, or maybe the ring itself highlights it for them.
• 6:47
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: what's the pathway from that moment on, to getting care?
• 6:50
  Ricky Bloomfield: currently this is a feature that's in Ora Labs, so they need to opt in to use this feature in Ora Labs.
• 6:57
  Ricky Bloomfield: for example, they get a symptom radar notification or they get their labs done, something else in the app that they want to ask about, all they have to do is start talking to Advisor.
• 7:06
  Ricky Bloomfield: Advisor is the AI agent within the app, and they can either decide to go directly to care.
• 7:11
  Ricky Bloomfield: There's a button where they can connect to care, and that'll connect them directly to the Council Medical AI or in their conversations with Advisor, it might identify that they're talking about something clinically related and will offer that as an option.
• 7:24
  Ricky Bloomfield: I was actually just using it earlier today, and it was just completely seamless.
• 7:28
  Ricky Bloomfield: I, tap Connect to Care or I was asking, some questions about my labs, and then I had the option to start talking to the medical AI.
• 7:34
  Ricky Bloomfield: And then at that point, if there's a reason that a doctor should intervene, it will offer that option, and with a single tap you can start, talking to a clinician
• 7:42
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: Gotcha.
• 7:43
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: And then correct me if I'm wrong, but once the physician joins the conversation, it's still entirely messaging based, is that right?
• 7:50
  Ricky Bloomfield: Correct.
• 7:51
  Ricky Bloomfield: This is an entirely messaging-based system
• 7:54
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: Can you talk me through what made you want to partner with a platform that delivers care in that way versus, you know, traditional telehealth video call approach to care?
• 8:04
  Ricky Bloomfield: We really like the messaging-based approach because it's, it just feels so familiar, especially to, those that are interested in, in wearables today.
• 8:13
  Ricky Bloomfield: They tend to, be those that are early adopters of technology.
• 8:16
  Ricky Bloomfield: they text all the time.
• 8:18
  Ricky Bloomfield: And I think almost everyone texts all the time, it feels like.
• 8:21
  Ricky Bloomfield: I text all the time with my parents, who one is gonna be 80 next month, and the other's 80-- gonna be 82 in, in September.
• 8:27
  Ricky Bloomfield: and we text with them all the time.
• 8:29
  Ricky Bloomfield: So I think it's a format that is not intimidating, and I think that's so important when you're trying to build this relationship.
• 8:35
  Ricky Bloomfield: You don't have to worry about someone sitting across from you, or staring at you, or analyzing or judging you, which of course, as a clinician, you kinda have to do those things.
• 8:42
  Ricky Bloomfield: You're always trying to collect as much information as you can.
• 8:46
  Ricky Bloomfield: But because this makes it so easy and familiar, we think it really opens the door for those that might otherwise be hesitant to reach out to their doctor to do it.
• 8:55
  Ricky Bloomfield: And of course, there's also the benefit of this being more asynchronous, that you don't have to worry about blocking off a certain amount of time for a call.
• 9:04
  Ricky Bloomfield: you can, come back, and you can ask a question when it's convenient for you.
• 9:07
  Ricky Bloomfield: And we're all so busy, that having that flexibility is actually really powerful, and again, makes it easier for someone to say,"Okay, I do have a question I actually do wanna ask," rather than putting it off and then never getting to it.
• 9:20
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there.
• 9:22
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: And what I'm taking away from this is it really is, it's just about meeting the users where they are, especially, those most innovative, users so tell me about, you know, if the council physician determines that the user does need in-person care, like it can't be delivered asynchronously, what happens then?
• 9:39
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: Where does that referral go?
• 9:41
  Ricky Bloomfield: So the, the, the physician will ask the patient do they already have a doctor?
• 9:45
  Ricky Bloomfield: Do they have a health system near them?
• 9:46
  Ricky Bloomfield: And they can put in a referral that makes the most sense for them.
• 9:49
  Ricky Bloomfield: and that's, that's typically what would happen today if you go to any virtual care provider.
• 9:53
  Ricky Bloomfield: They will try to do what makes the most sense for that individual.
• 9:56
  Ricky Bloomfield: and so we've already seen examples of that happen where the, the Aura member goes to, to counsel, the clinician finds something that needs additional investigation, maybe imaging, or a lab test or a specialist, and then they can then help you work with them to find the best referral option
• 10:12
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: Okay, that makes sense.
• 10:14
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: So if the user doesn't know where they wanna go, then the clinician is gonna help them find what the, what's the best option for them
• 10:21
  Ricky Bloomfield: Correct.
• 10:21
  Ricky Bloomfield: Yeah, they can talk through, how to best approach that on a personalized basis
• 10:26
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: So it sounds like the Council Health integration is just taking that one step further.
• 10:30
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: Like, we've given you, the tools to have all the data within your hands.
• 10:34
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: and if you wanna speak with a clinician, it is all here in the app and really easy for you to follow through that pathway
• 10:41
  Ricky Bloomfield: Exactly
• 10:42
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: Where does Aura, and then with this Council Health integration, where do you see yourself in the broader access landscape?
• 10:49
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: Do you see this integration as, part of preventative care, primary care, urgent care alternative, or is it something that doesn't quite fit neatly into any of those categories?
• 10:59
  Ricky Bloomfield: the, the cop-out answer is that it's all of the above.
• 11:03
  Ricky Bloomfield: and the reality is when you look at what primary care is today, it is all of those things.
• 11:09
  Ricky Bloomfield: Primary care, good primary care should include screening and prevention.
• 11:13
  Ricky Bloomfield: It should include, almost by default has to include some element of urgent care.
• 11:17
  Ricky Bloomfield: and then of course, it includes chronic care management and longitudinal care, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, musculoskeletal issues.
• 11:25
  Ricky Bloomfield: Those are all things that are common questions.
• 11:27
  Ricky Bloomfield: And as we have worked with Council, of course, we've seen all of those things come up, because we're not putting restrictions on what someone can ask their doctor about.
• 11:36
  Ricky Bloomfield: If they are connected to a Council physician, they're gonna ask whatever's on their mind, whatever's bothering them at the moment.
• 11:42
  Ricky Bloomfield: And because th- these are board-certified clinicians all across the country, they are empowered to use their clinical judgment to help that individual get the care they need.
• 11:51
  Ricky Bloomfield: And sometimes that care is advice.
• 11:53
  Ricky Bloomfield: Sometimes it's reassurance that, nothing is going on based on additional history that they will take from the patient.
• 11:59
  Ricky Bloomfield: they're reassured, or sometimes it requires additional testing.
• 12:02
  Ricky Bloomfield: we've had cases where they then, you know, order additional lab tests and find something, that, they otherwise didn't know, and it was because of symptoms they had, and that person would otherwise not have gone to another doctor.
• 12:13
  Ricky Bloomfield: But because the bar was, so low in terms of ease of use here, it was so easy to get in touch with that clinician, they did and found something that was able to change the trajectory of their health.
• 12:23
  Ricky Bloomfield: these stories have been shared with us and, it's been heartening to see when someone, you know, changes their health in these positive ways.
• 12:30
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so we're continuing to look for ways to make that connection, make it really easy, but ultimately, we want the best care, provided.
• 12:37
  Ricky Bloomfield: And, uh, we know that for many individuals, it can take weeks or months to get a, an appointment with your doctor, depending on where they're at and how busy, physicians are in their area.
• 12:47
  Ricky Bloomfield: meanwhile, they're able to get in touch with a Council physician within minutes sometimes.
• 12:52
  Ricky Bloomfield: so that's, able to, give these, patients what they need in the moment and then take the next step, whether it's reassurance, a prescription, sometimes even a referral to a physician at a brick-and-mortar healthcare facility.
• 13:05
  Anika: Like sometimes consumers might have a question, but does it require them to go in person and see a doctor in this moment?
• 13:11
  Anika: They might not be sure.
• 13:13
  Anika: Like they don't know if what they're looking at warrants care in the first place.
• 13:17
  Anika: And so this makes it so that they don't sit on that, and you can meet consumers where they are in that moment
• 13:23
  Ricky Bloomfield: another example, is that when patients do wanna talk to their own doctor, maybe they have a long-term relationship with that doctor, maybe it's a specialist, they will often have a lot of questions.
• 13:32
  Ricky Bloomfield: And sometimes they go to Google or they go to, you know, an AI agent now, something like that, and try to get an answer, because they only have 10 minutes with their doctor maybe once every three months or once every six months or every year, and they wish they had more time with their doctor.
• 13:47
  Ricky Bloomfield: We've gotten so many stories already that individuals were able to actually interact with the counsel AI, so it's a clinically validated AI, and they're able to get their questions answered for much longer.
• 13:59
  Ricky Bloomfield: And the way the AI has been designed is that if there's ever a question that needs to be answered by a clinician, it can-- it gives them the option to bring the clinician in right away, so they can continue down that path.
• 14:10
  Ricky Bloomfield: But it's great for individuals to be able to spend more time, getting their questions answered because they simply don't have that time with their, with their normal physician.
• 14:21
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: So following that thread, do you see this as a tool to give physicians themselves back some capacity,
• 14:27
  Ricky Bloomfield: I certainly hope so.
• 14:28
  Ricky Bloomfield: I think the, the AMA, released some statistics, I think it was last year, that there's gonna be a physician shortage of 86,000, by 2036, I believe it was.
• 14:41
  Ricky Bloomfield: and we already know that burnout is rampant, among physicians, both primary care as well as specialists, hospital setting, outpatient setting, and this worsened after COVID.
• 14:52
  Ricky Bloomfield: A lot of clinicians retired during COVID because that was a really hard time and they were burnt out as well.
• 14:57
  Ricky Bloomfield: But we need good clinicians.
• 14:58
  Ricky Bloomfield: We need more clinicians.
• 14:59
  Ricky Bloomfield: It doesn't look like we're going to dramatically increase how many physicians we're training today, which is one of the, one of the levers we have.
• 15:07
  Ricky Bloomfield: It doesn't look like that's gonna change anytime soon.
• 15:09
  Ricky Bloomfield: So we need to help clinicians across the board, do more with, with the time that they have.
• 15:15
  Ricky Bloomfield: And part of that is being more efficient, but also part of it is making sure they have a, a higher quality of life, that they're able to do things and not be as frustrated or tired.
• 15:23
  Ricky Bloomfield: And we think that for many of these, these situations, being able to talk with a medical AI and with a, a clinician virtually through this chat-based interface, is actually much easier and would offload some of the brick-and-mortar healthcare systems with some of these extra questions that might come their way.
• 15:41
  Ricky Bloomfield: and then when there is a need to refer to a specialist, they will still do that back to their, their existing specialist, or when they need imaging or diagnostics, that would have to happen, of course, with their traditional healthcare system.
• 15:53
  Ricky Bloomfield: So we think there's a way that these two can work together to try to optimize for what each one is really good at.
• 16:00
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: it's really fascinating.
• 16:01
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: I was speaking with, a CSO recently for a different podcast episode, and he was talking about, the consistent problem, in healthcare has always been scarcity.
• 16:11
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: And with AI, you have abundance, for my own edification, what's the difference between Aura Advisor AI, the Council Health AI, and like what I'm gonna find myself if I go onto ChatGPT or Claude?
• 16:25
  Ricky Bloomfield: Yeah, it's a really good question.
• 16:26
  Ricky Bloomfield: So first of all, I think the amount of data it has access to changes the game.
• 16:32
  Ricky Bloomfield: If you're gonna go talk to your doctor, the first thing they're gonna do is ask you a bunch of questions, get your medical history, try to understand the context of, w- who is Anika?
• 16:39
  Ricky Bloomfield: What have you been going through recently, and why does it matter?
• 16:43
  Ricky Bloomfield: And what we've done is in this, i-is in this experience, we've made sure that both Ora Advisor as well as Council AI and the council physicians have access to all of that relevant data.
• 16:53
  Ricky Bloomfield: And this is something where you don't wanna just flood, the system with all of the data.
• 16:57
  Ricky Bloomfield: You actually have to be very thoughtful about how you package that data and summarize it so that it's the right data at the right time to make the right decision.
• 17:06
  Ricky Bloomfield: And, we've spent a lot of time making sure we do that well, and many of the stories that we're getting of people who have just loved using the service were so surprised that the AI knew all of these details.
• 17:17
  Ricky Bloomfield: It knew they, you know, had either traveled recently or that they, you know, their sleep had been disrupted recently.
• 17:23
  Ricky Bloomfield: It knew that they had a symptom radar notification, which maybe resulted in, an upper respiratory infection later.
• 17:29
  Ricky Bloomfield: so we allow our members to connect to their health records and pull that in from their existing physician, and so it has access to that information as well.
• 17:37
  Ricky Bloomfield: So I think that's the biggest difference, whereas if you go talk to one of the, other large, online agents, it's not gonna have all that detail about you without you doing a lot of work to get it there.
• 17:47
  Ricky Bloomfield: of course, you can drop in PDFs, and you can, handle other connections.
• 17:51
  Ricky Bloomfield: But because within the Ora ecosystem, these individuals have already done all of that work, it makes these next steps that much more, surprising and delightful because they can see the immediate reward of a system that already knows about them in a privacy-preserving way.
• 18:07
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: That makes sense.
• 18:08
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: It's like having your own health personal assistant who just is one step ahead of you
• 18:13
  Ricky Bloomfield: Exactly
• 18:14
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: we've been going around this idea of how consumers actually interact with AI, and so you're kind of seeing that at a scale that a lot of healthcare executives wouldn't see.
• 18:22
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: So what do you think that the industry is getting wrong about how consumers actually want to use AI in the care of their health?
• 18:29
  Ricky Bloomfield: I think the consumers are using AI probably much more than most people think.
• 18:36
  Ricky Bloomfield: I think there are some assumptions about how much people are using it.
• 18:39
  Ricky Bloomfield: but just like when search engines became available, they were, using Dr.
• 18:43
  Ricky Bloomfield: Google as, as many physicians would call it.
• 18:45
  Ricky Bloomfield: And I think there was a lot of, reasonable skepticism at the type of advice that patients were getting when they used these tools.
• 18:53
  Ricky Bloomfield: I think what has changed a little bit is that there are many studies now that show, the outcomes and clinical decision-making when, physicians use AI, and when they don't, and when AI does something by itself.
• 19:08
  Ricky Bloomfield: And there was actually a really interesting study that came out, I believe it was last year or y- or even the year before, that showed that AI was actually better than the physician using AI because the physician would second-guess the guidance that it got from AI and actually bring it down, bring the accuracy down some.
• 19:26
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so I think this is starting to change the narrative a little bit around the accuracy.
• 19:31
  Ricky Bloomfield: it's still not perfect, but guess what?
• 19:33
  Ricky Bloomfield: Physicians aren't perfect.
• 19:34
  Ricky Bloomfield: Humans aren't perfect.
• 19:35
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so the baseline isn't perfection.
• 19:36
  Ricky Bloomfield: the goal isn't perfection.
• 19:37
  Ricky Bloomfield: The goal is, can you be more consistently accurate than another human who might have their own biases, gets tired, gets frustrated, all of the other things that we do as humans?
• 19:49
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so I think that's what we're looking at.
• 19:51
  Ricky Bloomfield: And patients are starting to use these tools as well for the same reasons.
• 19:55
  Ricky Bloomfield: In general, it's providing pretty good advice.
• 19:57
  Ricky Bloomfield: but that's why we need to make sure ideally there's also a clinician in the loop.
• 20:01
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so I think that's why when you can bring these together, high-quality AI with a clinician in the loop, you kinda have the best of both worlds, so that when an action needs to happen, which, the AI is not writing prescriptions, yet.
• 20:12
  Ricky Bloomfield: There are some examples of prescription renewals and that type of thing, but not new prescriptions.
• 20:17
  Ricky Bloomfield: And it's certainly not doing diagnostic tests automatically, and it's not, doing surgeries, yet.
• 20:23
  Ricky Bloomfield: So I think there are still, really important reasons why we need to make this transition between the AI and the clinician as seamless as possible because it's a continuum of care.
• 20:34
  Ricky Bloomfield: And we see ourselves as one of the entry points, the front door for these patients to come in to start to get that care because they already have so much trust in us and the longitudinal data that we provide to them.
• 20:46
  Ricky Bloomfield: Because, their relationship with Oura, it's interesting.
• 20:49
  Ricky Bloomfield: We've seen that people wear the ring 23 and a half hours per day on average.
• 20:53
  Ricky Bloomfield: and that far exceeds, wrist-worn wearables, where most people take those off at night either to charge it or because it's uncomfortable to wear at night.
• 21:01
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so when we see the level of investment that Oura members are putting into that ecosystem because they trust the data and they see the benefits, we feel an obligation as well to make sure that they can get the most out of it, and this is one, one example of that.
• 21:16
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: that's really fascinating, and I wouldn't be surprised either if, the number of consumers who are using AI in their health journeys is much higher than we expect.
• 21:24
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: I'm thinking about myself, and like I've gone to AI and been like,"Help me come up with, like a workout routine," and,"I'm feeling this way," and all, all these types of things.
• 21:33
  Anika: So you've said a lot of Oura users are wearing it 23 and a half hours a day.
• 21:38
  Anika: Are you noticing that wearing a ring or wearables in general is changing when and how people decide to seek care?
• 21:46
  Anika: Is this helping them manage chronic conditions and are they showing up to their doctor appointments with their Oura data in hand?
• 21:54
  Ricky Bloomfield: We are definitely seeing this happen and I can give you some specific examples.
• 21:59
  Ricky Bloomfield: we have a partnership with a Medicare Advantage plan called Essence.
• 22:03
  Ricky Bloomfield: So it's a, it's an MA plan in the Midwest US, and they offer the ring as a covered benefit for their beneficiaries.
• 22:10
  Ricky Bloomfield: and uptake has been very strong.
• 22:12
  Ricky Bloomfield: So it's-- if someone wants to wear it, it's opt-in.
• 22:14
  Ricky Bloomfield: they will get the ring for free, and, they can-- opt to share data back with Essence and their care provider.
• 22:21
  Ricky Bloomfield: It's totally in their control.
• 22:22
  Ricky Bloomfield: And one of the programs we started with them recently is the ring will actually measure how they're sleeping, and if it identifies patterns that might be worrisome, it will, flag the, the provider.
• 22:36
  Ricky Bloomfield: And in this case, there's an AI agent used by Essence called Tom that will reach out to these Medicare beneficiaries, so 65 plus, and conduct a survey over the phone.
• 22:48
  Ricky Bloomfield: So an AI agent talks to them, conducts a survey called the Stop Bang Survey, which is a screening survey for, sleep apnea.
• 22:54
  Ricky Bloomfield: If they screen positive after that survey, then they get connected directly to the clinician who can have a conversation with them, who can, recommend a sleep study if warranted.
• 23:05
  Ricky Bloomfield: And, th-this is really important because there are so many negative consequences of sleep apnea, And also cost.
• 23:12
  Ricky Bloomfield: we've seen that it actually costs more to take care of a patient on an annual basis if they have undiagnosed sleep apnea versus if they have diagnosed sleep apnea.
• 23:23
  Ricky Bloomfield: So this is one of those cases where the incentives are totally aligned.
• 23:26
  Ricky Bloomfield: Do the right thing for the patient, save money for the health system and the insurer, and everybody wins.
• 23:32
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so we're really excited about that and are already starting to see some of the fruits of that.
• 23:36
  Ricky Bloomfield: But it goes to show that, having a connection with your doctor is so important.
• 23:40
  Ricky Bloomfield: And then there are also the examples of individual patients who have seen benefit from this.
• 23:47
  Ricky Bloomfield: And there are so many stories.
• 23:49
  Ricky Bloomfield: And the reality is the-- these devices are something that we can wear twenty-four/seven.
• 23:56
  Ricky Bloomfield: And if you look at the symbol of healthcare for over a hundred years has been the stethoscope.
• 24:01
  Ricky Bloomfield: That's the thing all clinicians have with them all the time.
• 24:05
  Ricky Bloomfield: it's this magical device that lets us peer into the body in some ways by, listening to what's happening.
• 24:11
  Ricky Bloomfield: And if I look into the future and someone were to ask me, what would be more valuable, a stethoscope or a wearable like Oura Ring?" No question, it's the Oura Ring.
• 24:19
  Ricky Bloomfield: I would much rather have twenty-four/seven data, three hundred and sixty-five days a year than, a thirty-second, snapshot from a stethoscope once a year.
• 24:31
  Ricky Bloomfield: It's gonna t-totally change how we approach this.
• 24:33
  Ricky Bloomfield: And if we want to keep people healthy and identify problems early, these tools are gonna be key to helping us get there.
• 24:41
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: That's really fascinating I am curious, on the flip side, I've always heard, for certain tests, for certain screenings, you don't wanna over-screen because then you run the risk of false positives and the like.
• 24:50
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: Is that a concern at all?
• 24:52
  Anika Rasheed, THMA: Like, i- is there such a thing as too much data?
• 24:55
  Ricky Bloomfield: Absolutely.
• 24:56
  Ricky Bloomfield: Yeah, there absolutely is such a thing as too much data, and this is something we think about all the time.
• 25:01
  Ricky Bloomfield: The last thing we wanna do is surface data for the sake of showing data.
• 25:05
  Ricky Bloomfield: Every new feature we create, every new metric that we display to the user, we s- we contemplate h- how is this gonna help them?
• 25:12
  Ricky Bloomfield: and if we believe that it will help them, how do we show it in a way that makes sense and could encourage and motivate them to change their behavior in a way that is positive for their overall health?
• 25:25
  Ricky Bloomfield: If we have metrics internally and none of those things are true, then we don't show them.
• 25:29
  Ricky Bloomfield: it's just not worth doing.
• 25:31
  Ricky Bloomfield: we think it's really important that we, are thoughtful about all of these pieces, and that includes our features that offer a notification.
• 25:38
  Ricky Bloomfield: And for features that offer a notification, we think it's really important to understand the performance characteristics from a statistical standpoint.
• 25:45
  Ricky Bloomfield: What is the sensitivity, specificity?
• 25:47
  Ricky Bloomfield: and so we're always, you know, working harder to make sure that we are only providing information that is going to be useful and not something that will, cause more strain on our health system.
• 25:58
  Anika: So you've just said that you don't wanna cause more strain on the health system, and I wanna build on that because you've talked about getting wearable data into clinical workflows in a way that's, in your words, clinically meaningful and not burdensome for physicians.
• 26:12
  Anika: What does that look like in practice to you?
• 26:15
  Ricky Bloomfield: The last thing clinicians want is another spreadsheet or flow sheet to pour through in the EHR when they have 10 to 15 minutes with a patient.
• 26:23
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so we wanna be very sensitive.
• 26:25
  Ricky Bloomfield: we know there's a lot of data available in the Oura app, but only certain metrics are gonna be relevant to a clinician at any given point in time.
• 26:32
  Ricky Bloomfield: So I think the Essence example that I already mentioned is a great example of this, where they don't need to know everything that's in the Oura app.
• 26:38
  Ricky Bloomfield: They just want to know some very specific things related to that individual's sleep at that point in time, so they have the information they might need to help finalize a diagnosis of sleep apnea, for example.
• 26:48
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so we are very thoughtful any time we have this type of handoff and partnership that we're sharing the right data at the right time so that it is something that is actionable for the clinician and not something that is gonna be foreign to them or they have to, spend time and energy trying to parse so that they can figure out what's going on.
• 27:08
  Anika: Okay, last thing.
• 27:10
  Anika: you've got a direct line to health system chief strategy officers on this podcast.
• 27:14
  Anika: So if you were sitting across from them right now, what would you want them to understand about where wearables, AI, and Oura specifically fit in care delivery?
• 27:26
  Ricky Bloomfield: We know that things are hard today.
• 27:27
  Ricky Bloomfield: We know that health systems are under strain, for lots of reasons.
• 27:30
  Ricky Bloomfield: margins are thin right now as well, and we're looking at that.
• 27:34
  Ricky Bloomfield: We're trying to find ways, how can we help improve health at reduced cost?
• 27:38
  Ricky Bloomfield: That's our goal.
• 27:39
  Ricky Bloomfield: and so forming partnerships, actually doing this with real physicians in real settings is really important, and we do not want to replace clinicians.
• 27:48
  Ricky Bloomfield: We need, you know, all the help we can get.
• 27:50
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so, being a strong partner to those clinicians, understanding what works within their workflow, and not being burdensome, but actually helping to improve and alleviate the load on physicians is where we see ourselves.
• 28:02
  Ricky Bloomfield: At the end of the day, we all want the same thing.
• 28:04
  Ricky Bloomfield: We want to help patients improve their health, and reduce cost, both for them and the health systems.
• 28:10
  Ricky Bloomfield: And so we look forward to having more discussions with like-minded, innovators to see how we can do that best.
• 28:17
  Anika: the thing I'll be sitting with after this conversation is, is something that you said earlier about why the model ultimately runs on messaging.
• 28:24
  Anika: that it's easier to send a question over message than say it out loud to a physician that might be sitting across from you.
• 28:31
  Anika: And then when it becomes easier, people ask that question instead of putting it off and then, you know, maybe never getting back to it.
• 28:38
  Anika: The other thing I'll be thinking about is just how much of this puts the consumer in the driver's seat.
• 28:43
  Anika: they opt in, they decide to ask, and, you know, it's all asynchronous too, so it puts it right in their hands.
• 28:50
  Anika: And I think that's a shift worth thinking about for the strategy leaders listening, because consumers are getting more comfortable holding that position and they're also getting more equipped to.
• 29:00
  Anika: this has been a really fantastic conversation, Dr.
• 29:03
  Anika: Rickey.
• 29:04
  Anika: Thank you so much for coming on today
• 29:06
  Ricky Bloomfield: Thanks so much.
• 29:07
  Ricky Bloomfield: I really enjoyed the discussion
• 29:09
  Anika (2): That wraps up this episode of the Strategy Catalyst Dispatch.
• 29:12
  Anika (2): If you found this episode valuable, please like and subscribe on your podcast platform of choice and leave us a comment.
• 29:18
  Anika (2): If you have other thoughts or questions, we'd love to hear them.
• 29:21
  Anika (2): Email us at Strategy catalyst@hmacademy.com.
• 29:25
  Anika (2): You can also find more of our resources on HM academy.com/strategy-catalyst.
• 29:32
  Anika (2): That's it for this dispatch.
• 29:34
  Anika (2): Thanks for listening.