Welkin Health, a San Francisco-based digital health company that helps healthcare organizations provide care to patients with chronic illness has inked a partnership with Humana on a new telephonic diabetes outreach program for the elderly. Welkin Health’s platform supports care organizations that emphasize care coordination as a critical element of quality improvement and cost reduction. Healthcare organizations can now enable members of the care team to seamlessly manage daily outreach to hundreds of people with chronic illness through telephone, SMS, and Welkin’s smartphone app for patients.
As part of the partnership, Humana will utilize Welkin Health’s Coaching platform for a new telephonic diabetes program in San Antonio and New Orleans that will give patients access to personalized diabetes support. “Providing diabetes education and support for senior citizens is challenging to do in a convenient and accessible way,” said Sarah Ahmad, Vice President, Consumer Health Solutions at Humana. The CDC reports that more than half of adults in America have a chronic health condition, and almost 90% of healthcare spending now goes to chronic disease management such as diabetes. In this environment, forward-thinking health insurers like Humana are investing in the programs and tools necessary to manage large populations of patients with chronic illness.
In addition to the Humana partnership, Welkin has also raised a $2M seed round of financing led by investors including Rock Health, Asset Management Ventures and the Mayo Clinic. The additional capital will be used to expand Welkin’s care coordination platform to include chronic disease care for hypertension, COPD, and congestive heart failure, and also go towards further developing tools for administrators.
