The document summarizes a discussion on mobile technologies for nutrition, health and wellness. It includes presentations from representatives of LoseIt!, Wellable, and Dimagi on their mobile apps and how mobile is changing health. Key points include: LoseIt! has over 18 million users tracking food and exercise to lose weight at scale; Wellable creates consumer-focused health apps and tools for employers and providers; Dimagi builds mobile apps for community health workers in low-income countries to strengthen primary care. The potential of mobile to improve access, engagement and empower individuals was discussed.

1. Small Screens, Big Changes: Frontiers in Mobile
Technology for Nutrition, Health and Wellness
Charles Teague, LoseIt!,
charles@loseit.com
Nick Patel, Wellable,
nick@wellable.co
Neal Lesh, Dimagi,
nlesh@dimagi.com
Moderator:
Lisa Gualtieri, Tufts University
School of Medicine,
lisa.gualtieri@tufts.edu
February 26, 2014

2. Mobile changes everything
Top 10 mobile searches
Top 10 web searches
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Chlamydia
Bipolar disorder
Depression
Smoking/quit smoking
Herpes
Gout
Scabies
Multiple Sclerosis
Pregnancy
Vitamin A
Cancer
Diabetes
Symptom
Pain
Weight
Infection
Virus
Diet
Thyroid
Sleep

3. What fascinates me about mobile health
• Selection and adoption of apps
• Sustained use necessary for behavior change
and health benefits
• Making devices and sensors appealing
• More adaptive and personalized

5. What is Lose It!?
The best weight loss system
available
Connected– connects you to the people,
devices, and food you need to succeed
Personal– customizes a weight loss plan that
fits your life.
Effective– based upon proven principles of
calorie tracking and peer support
Facts and Figures
Available on iOS, Android, and the web
Top 5 Free / Grossing Health and Fitness
application across platforms
iTunes Editor’s choice, Best of 2013
Time Magazine top 50 iPhone apps
Winner, Surgeon General’s Healthy App

6. Weight loss at scale
18 million
registered users
25 billion
foods logged
2 billion
exercises logged
246 million
weigh ins
25,000
interactions each minute

7. Demographics

8. Mobile- so what?

Clinically successful approaches to weight loss are
actually well understood in many cases
Tracking + Peer Support = Foundational Approach

But approaches suffer from poor compliance, in
consumer terms, poor engagement

Mobile allows us to make huge strides in
engagement
Recapture lost time throughout the day
Engage users at moments of decision
Mobile = Proximity to choice and action
Reduced cost, increased access

9. A Few More Trends to Consider

Consumer activation around wellness
Health and Fitness in the App Store is incredibly competitive
Top apps in the category are among the 100 most popular apps on
the platform

Wearables and devices
Activity trackers, scales, and other connected devices exploding
New opportunity to measure user behavior with very low friction for
users

Data at scale
Explosion in scale of data and potential for intelligence
Huge challenge to create actionable insights for users, not just
charts

10. Nick Patel
@GetWellable

11. [ ]
43,700
health care mobile apps available to consumers
11

12. [ ]
90%
scored less than 40 on an scale of 100 for functionality
12

13. [ ]
5
15%
apps generate
of downloads
13

14. [ ]
1/2
of remaining apps were downloaded less than 500
times
14

15. [ ]
32%
mobile device owners use fitness apps
15

16. [ ]
50%
mobile health app users were fitness app users
16

17. [ ]
By 2015, more than
500 million
consumers will use health apps on their mobile device
17

18. WHAT IS WELLABE?
Consumer Focused
Health and Wellness
Mobile Apps
Enterprise
Wellness
Programs
EMPLOYERS
PROVIDERS
HEALTH PLANS
18

19. IT’S JUST NOT ABOUT CONNECTING APPS…
ANALYTICS
COMMUNICATION
WELLABLE APP PARTNERS
SOCIAL / GAMIFICATION
19

20. WHERE DO YOU FIT IN?
Legacy Health Coach Model
Wellable Health Coach Model
REAL-TIME DATA
20

21. Mobile apps to strengthen community
health in low-income countries
Neal Lesh, Dimagi – Feb 2014
nlesh@dimagi.com

22. Dimagi
• Leader in open source mobile technology for low-income countries
• Create mobile solutions that don’t require developers to deploy
• 10 years experience working on over 150+ projects in 40+ countries

23. COMMCARE:
MOBILE APPLICATIONS FOR
COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKERS

24. CommCare in use by a CHW

25. CommCare: Multimedia for Counseling

26. CommCare: Case Management
1. Find Case
2. View Case Summary
3. Step-by-Step Guidance

27. Example: CommCare Workflow
SMS Reminder
Question
Reena is overdue
for his follow-up
treatment
please follow-up
with her.
Select
Exit
Select
Find Existing Clients
Record Client
information
Provide Multimedia
counseling and
Disseminate information
Exit
Follow-up
with clients
CommCareHQ
Information System
Build / Modify Application
Manage Your Data and Workforce

28. Frontline Programs Launched in India in 2013
Maternal & Child Health (16)
Nutrition (6)
Sexual & Reproductive Health (2)
Tuberculosis (2)
Malaria (1)
HIV (1)
Domestic Violence (1)
Agriculture (3)
Education (2)
Tobacco Cessation (1)
Disaster Preparedness (1)
Affordable Energy (1)
Supervision (2)
Household Survey (1)
All of these apps will be published on the CommCare Exchange

29. ADRA’s SALOHI mHealth Nutrition
Program
Application Purpose:
• To improve data quality of Growth Monitoring and
Promotion (GMP)
• Support health volunteers in providing counseling
messages
Application Details:
• Tracks children’s monthly nutritional anthropometric status
• Calculates weight-for-age Z score
• Record MUACs
• Provides appropriate nutritional counseling messages

30. CommCare for Growth Monitoring

31. Evidence base
• Dimagi partners with many research
groups to evaluate CommCare
Level
• 16 peer-reviewed publications on
CommCare. Most evidence-based
mobile platform for Frontline Workers
• No Impact studies yet, many gray-lit
Client KAP studies
Study
Published?
#Yes
#No
4
2. Implementation
• Full Evidence Base is available online
(http://tinyurl.com/cut6pkt)
1. Conceptual
6
3. FLW Interviews
2
3
4. FLW Activity
4
4
5. Client KAP
Total # Studies
4
16
11

32. SOME LESSONS HARD LEARNED

33. Design Under the Mango Tree
33

34. Data should be Actionable

35. Frequency of Visis (Work by Brian DeRenzi et. al)
B. DeRenzi, L. Findlater, G. Borriello, J. Jackson, J. Payne, B. Birnbaum, T. Parikh, N. Lesh,
“Improving Community Health Worker Performance Through Automated SMS”, ICTD 2011, to
appear

36. Thank you!
Contact: Neal Lesh (nlesh@dimagi.com)
Additional Videos:
CommCare Overview Video: http://youtu.be/ZpfvISKxylE
CommCare Demo Video with multi-lingual support from India: http://youtu.be/30Ftk6STM3U
Recorded Webex of CommCare Presentation given to NetHope: http://bit.ly/tiLaYy
Additional Resources:
http://groups.google.com/group/ict4chw
http://www.commcarehq.org
http://www.dimagi.com

37. Dimagi Global Head-office
585 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
T: +1.617.649.2214
F: +1.617.274.8393
For more Information
E: information@dimagi.com
W: www.dimagi.com
W: www.commcarehq.org
W: www.dimagi.com/category/blog/

38. Questions
1. My mother-in-law downloaded LoseIt and wants to know
how it takes into consideration your age and physical ability
to exercise? The broader question here is:
–
How are all people accommodated and when is it okay for a
specific demographics' needs to be met be in age, location, or
health condition?
2. From Twitter: Why does LoseIt treat iPhone users better
than Android? Larger question:
–
What is the impact of the changes in technology: cell phones,
smart phones, tablets etc on your products?
3. What would a healthcare provider need to know to
"prescribe" your app? Why would someone "adhere" to
that prescription?
4. If you had unlimited funds what would you each do in the
next year?