StarHub has launched LifeHub+, a Digital Health Service in partnership with Alexandra Hospital and ConnectedLife with Fitbit. It can link a patient to a family doctor or General Practitioner (GP), health coach, and caregiver to better manage pre- and non-complex chronic conditions.
This is a subscription-based service. Patients subscribe to ConnectedCare, a plan under LifeHub+ through their healthcare providers at S$9.99 monthly. The first 300 LifeHub+ subscribers onboarded through partner GPs will receive a Fitbit device and access to ConnectedCare at no cost for the initial 12 months, allowing them to channel support from their care team digitally. More information is in the Press Release below.
Press Release
StarHub Launches Digital Health Service with Alexandra Hospital and ConnectedLife with Fitbit to Connect Patients with Doctors, Health Coaches and Caregivers
Personalised health and lifestyle app which integrates consenting users’ Fitbit data
First health tracking app that links a patient to a family doctor or General Practitioner (GP), health coach and caregiver to better manage pre- and non-complex chronic conditions
Alexandra Hospital is the first hospital to onboard the new service and it is helping to connect the GPs in the western region to this, with more than 30 GPs expressing interest so far. It will also provide trained health coaches.
Singapore, 14 October 2022 – StarHub has launched LifeHub+, a digital health service today in partnership with Alexandra Hospital (AH) and ConnectedLife with Fitbit. Users can choose to share their Fitbit data through the LifeHub+ app, and receive dynamic health scores, data alerts, and metrics which give them simple, clear insights into their health for tracking and daily improvement. A first in the market, customers can also grant access to a pre-programmed care team comprising their family doctor or General Practitioner (GP), a health coach from AH, caregivers, and even doctors from other healthcare institutions, to access their health data via a dedicated secure LifeHub+ dashboard. LifeHub+ can also be programmed to nudge users to improve their health, for example, to reduce sedentary time throughout the day, and can be used to toggle reminders on medication, exercise, or scheduling medical check-ups.
“We believe in the massive potential of technology in transforming healthcare and improving patient experience. Aligned with our DARE+ strategy, we are leveraging our expertise in connectivity, to create a digital health service that helps doctors channel attentive care and enrol their consenting patients into a holistic health plan. With LifeHub+, clinicians can access the latest health data and evaluate their patients’ wellness quickly and accurately, and intervene early when they discover risk factors. Besides guiding users to lead healthier lives, we are enriching community support in a digital ecosystem, bridging family doctors, hospitals, and patients’ family members to deliver integrated proactive care,” said Johan Buse, Chief, Consumer Business Group, StarHub.
300 eligible patients from AH and GP clinics with preventable chronic health risks will be among the first to be onboarded to LifeHub+ and have their wellness activities and certain metrics monitored by AH health coaches and their GPs. This tie-up aims to build closer ties between patients and their care team, especially with family doctors who provide as the first line of care. In addition, this initiative improves management of patients’ health and lifestyles with timely interventions through a personalised health plan, especially in the prevention and management of chronic diseases. Lifestyle adjustments made include social prescriptions such as exercise and diet.
Health and wellness data in the LifeHub+ app include Fitbit metrics which users can choose to share, such as steps, exercise, sleep patterns, heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature variation, breathing rate, oxygen saturation (SpO2) and more. This data, together with user-recorded blood pressure and blood glucose from third party devices are combined in the LifeHub+ app and used to generate a dynamic wellness score. Fitbit data which users choose to share are integrated into the LifeHub+ platform via the public WebAPI.
The family doctor or GP and AH’s health coach who receive these wellness insights, can choose to use them to holistically manage and support primary care patients. This approach helps curate a healthy lifestyle for patients who are at-risk or have simple chronic health conditions including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Future features being developed by ConnectedLife for integration into LifeHub+ include lifestyle questionnaires and disease risk assessment tools.
Besides helping to connect GPs from mostly the Queenstown and western region as well as being a referring hospital to which joint escalated care may be provided to the GPs, AH is also onboarding its own metabolic clinic patients to help prevent simple diseases from deteriorating into complex chronic diseases. Health coaches from AH will offer digital health interventions through the LifeHub+ app by providing personalised health plans with lifestyle and dietary modifications.
LifeHub+ is a free scalable cloud service for doctors. Patients subscribe to ConnectedCare, a plan under LifeHub+ through their healthcare providers at $9.99 monthly. The first 300 LifeHub+ subscribers onboarded through partner GPs will receive a Fitbit device and access to ConnectedCare at no cost for the initial 12 months, allowing them to channel support from their care team digitally. More than 30 GPs have expressed interest through AH to better manage their patients’ health and lifestyle on this new service.
Dr Alexander Yip, a gastroenterologist and integrated care consultant who is the Clinical Director of AH’s Healthcare Redesign to seal this partnership with StarHub said, “AH is a designated sandbox for new digital health and technology innovations. We are constantly looking to implement new technology-enabled care models to provide better care to all our patients in the hospital and community. This new digital health initiative leverages wearables to provide a rich source of information on the lifestyle of our patients, which helps our doctors and health coaches in AH improve patients’ health holistically through timely lifestyle interventions.”
Dr Jason Phua, CEO of AH said, “The digital health revolution has arrived. Wearable health trackers which are linked to health and care teams in the hospital and the community can help empower users to proactively manage their chronic conditions before deterioration.”
Steve Morley, Director Fitbit Health Solutions International and APAC said, “We continue to collaborate with ConnectedLife to facilitate engagement with strategic partners like StarHub and AH to support solutions that play a key role in building the digital health ecosystem in Singapore. This programme allows users to manage access to their health and wellness insights digitally and share with preferred GPs, clinics and the hospital, if they choose to do so. Leveraging Fitbit enables a better and more connected digital health experience.”
StarHub intends to scale this rollout with its partners from ConnectedLife with Fitbit and AH and more GPs. Healthcare providers who wish to find out more information about LifeHub+, or join as a StarHub ConnectedCare partner at no cost, may visit www.lifehub.sg/partner.
About StarHub
StarHub is a leading homegrown Singapore company that delivers world-class communications, entertainment and digital solutions. With our extensive fibre and wireless infrastructure and global partnerships, we bring to people, homes and enterprises quality mobile and fixed services, a broad suite of premium content, and a diverse range of communication solutions. We develop and deliver to corporate and government clients solutions incorporating artificial intelligence, cyber security, data analytics, Internet of Things and robotics. We are committed to conducting our business in a sustainable and environmentally responsible manner. Listed on the Singapore Exchange mainboard, StarHub is a component stock of the SGX iEdge SG ESG Leaders and Transparency Indices and included in ESG-focused FTSE4Good Index Series. StarHub is ranked as the world’s most sustainable Wireless Telecommunications Service Provider and Singapore’s most sustainable Telco, in Corporate Knights Global 100. Find us at www.starhub.com, or connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
About Alexandra Hospital
Alexandra Hospital (AH) comes under the National University Health System (NUHS), and serves as a 326-bedder facility, providing seamless, one-stop comprehensive care by one care team to some 100,000 residents in the Queenstown precinct (the oldest housing estate) and Southwest and the rest of Singapore. Alexandra Hospital is the first Integrated General Hospital in Singapore providing holistic and seamless care from acute, sub-acute to rehabilitative settings, reducing the need for a patient to transfer to another healthcare institution. The clinical model is team-led and programme-based. This means that every patient who comes to Alexandra Hospital will be placed under at least one of the following five core clinical programmes, and be taken care by a single doctor and the same care team, under one of these programmes.
The hospital’s Care Managers assist patients, families with the help of community partners so that medical and social help can be planned and provided to those who need it and continuously by primary care providers, thereby empowering them to stay healthy at home and in the community.
AH is also the site for staging innovative health and care as well as person-centric solutions with a view to enabling best practices to be scoped, shared and scaled with the help of technological advancements. Together with the community, AH strives to bring about seamless integrated care beyond discharge, and enabling continuity of care anchored in the safety and comfort of the home and community.
Visit us at www.ah.com.sg. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @AlexandraHospitalSG
About ConnectedLife
ConnectedLife is committed to protecting the personal data of users, and managing it in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). The company is accredited with the Data Protection Trustmark by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore, and complies with The Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). ConnectedLife is also an international digital health service provider, with the service deployed within the National Health System (NHS) in the United Kingdom, PT Bio Farma (Persero) in Indonesia as well as Manipal Hospitals in India.