Has Virgin Pulse’s Acquisition of Welltok Created a New Kind of Care Navigator? – The Health Care Blog

By JESS DaMASSA, WTF Well being

Virgin Pulse has been a large title in workplace wellness for a very long time – doing the job with wellness programs and employers (like 25% of the Fortune 500) to supply care navigation, properly-remaining providers, overall health coaching and entry to electronic overall health position methods for yrs. Yet, it lifted some eyebrows at the conclude of last 12 months when it introduced its acquisition of information-pushed wellness company, Welltok. So, what takes place when one particular of the major names in employee wellbeing all of a sudden has accessibility to a dataset of 250M healthcare buyers? Virgin Pulse’s CEO Chris Michalak stops by to talk about the price of that knowledge, which he thinks will not only turbo-demand Virgin Pulse’s engagement costs, but also offer new strategies for the small business to provide as a “full-on navigation capability” for employers, strategies, and overall health systems.

As Chris places it, Virgin Pulse has generally been an “engagement company” but the addition of Welltok’s knowledge turns it into an “activation corporation.” As Virgin Pulse continues to partner up with digital health and fitness stage remedies, provide digital therapeutics into the fold, and establish-out principal treatment associations as a lead stream, the platform Chris describes begins to seem much more and much more like a navigation organization that competes with the likes of Accolade or Involved Overall health. Will Virgin Pulse 1-working day dip into principal treatment themselves and incorporate their individual digital treatment vendors? Will they develop their possess digital therapeutics with details derived from that wealthy Welltok databases? We get into the ‘what’s next’ for the small business as it integrates its newest acquisition and seeks to win more C-suite notice from companies in search of to much better control their employees’ entry to health care added benefits.