What happened?
- According to the latest statistics from the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), the global healthcare expenditure on diabetes is approaching $1 trillion, more than three times the amount 15 years ago, and nowadays, one person dies of diabetes every five seconds. In Taiwan, according to the National Health Service, the prevalence rate of diabetes among people over 18 years old is 11.1%, and about 2,186,000 people have diabetes nationwide.
- Since diabetes is a chronic disease that requires long-term tracking management and care, in the past, most patients relied on simple blood glucose record forms to manage their blood glucose. Doctors could not learn the actual condition within 3 to 5 minutes of the consultation. Hence, doctors and patients need a more digitized data compilation and analysis system to control diabetes.
How can medical software innovations be marketed?
Teng Jui-Yi, CEO of Health2Sync, who has a family history of diabetes, realized that many of his relatives suffered from diabetes in their twilight years and decided to develop a software system for dynamic blood glucose management that integrates a variety of health information such as diet, sleep, and exercise. However, the team had to overcome the cumbersome regulations for entry into the healthcare market at the initial stage of development, as well as the obstacles of low utilization of healthcare software, a small market, and difficulty in promoting the program.
- Patient side (to C): Collaborate with domestic and foreign blood glucose machines and blood glucose test strip manufacturers to introduce the Smart Glucose APP software to medical institutions and patients so that the number of users can grow steadily. With the growth of users, the Smart Glucose team can continue to enrich and optimize the functions of the APP so that patients will feel that recording blood glucose on time will give them clear feedback and help them control their conditions, which in turn will stimulate the sales of glucose machines and test strips.
- Doctors (to B): Since Taiwan Health Insurance has a long-term incentive mechanism for medical institutions to improve the care of diabetic patients, doctors are motivated to help their patients control their conditions better and are therefore willing to import the cloud-based care platform of Health2Sync, which allows them to manage and check the data of all their diabetic patients from a single backend, thus improving the efficiency of diagnosis and treatment.
Health2Sync and Abbott cooperated to develop the integration of a "Continuous Glucose Monitoring System" (CGM); patients only need to wear a coin-sized sensor and can record nearly a hundred continuous blood glucose values a day without needles.
What's in the future?
With the results of the domestic medical hospitals, Smart Glucose has accelerated the efficiency of the Japanese clinics by going overseas and started to deploy in 2016, and in just a few years, it has reached first place in the market share.
- Currently, the biggest goal of the Health2Sync is to grasp the digital therapeutic trend, obtain the SaMD (Software as a Medical Device) license in Taiwan, and incorporate it into health insurance coverage as soon as possible. With a successful business model and accumulated patient data and experience, the platform may be expanded to care for chronic patients with high blood pressure and kidney disease.
After receiving cooperation from three major global pharmaceutical companies, Sanofi, Novo Nordisk, and Abbott, how will Health2Sync develop and stabilize the overseas market next? Read the in-depth Salon Talk between Sunrise Medium and Wisecare's CEO, Mr. Teng Jui-Yi.
