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

By JESS DaMASSA, WTF Wellness

Virgin Pulse has been a huge identify in office wellness for a prolonged time – operating with health strategies and employers (together with 25% of the Fortune 500) to provide treatment navigation, perfectly-currently being providers, well being coaching and accessibility to digital overall health position solutions for a long time. Nevertheless, it raised some eyebrows at the stop of final 12 months when it declared its acquisition of details-driven wellness business, Welltok. So, what occurs when one particular of the biggest names in employee wellbeing suddenly has accessibility to a dataset of 250M health care customers? Virgin Pulse’s CEO Chris Michalak stops by to converse about the worth of that data, which he thinks will not only turbo-demand Virgin Pulse’s engagement prices, but also offer new strategies for the business to serve as a “full-on navigation capability” for companies, designs, and health systems.

As Chris places it, Virgin Pulse has always been an “engagement company” but the addition of Welltok’s data turns it into an “activation organization.” As Virgin Pulse proceeds to associate up with digital health point alternatives, bring electronic therapeutics into the fold, and create-out primary care interactions as a lead stream, the system Chris describes begins to audio extra and extra like a navigation business that competes with the likes of Accolade or Incorporated Wellbeing. Will Virgin Pulse one particular-day dip into main treatment themselves and incorporate their very own virtual care companies? Will they make their have digital therapeutics with data derived from that loaded Welltok database? We get into the ‘what’s next’ for the small business as it integrates its newest acquisition and seeks to get extra C-suite notice from businesses seeking to improved take care of their employees’ obtain to healthcare advantages.