Fitbit has announced that it will acquire Twine Health, an HIPAA-compliant health management platform geared toward people with chronic health conditions.
The union will help Fitbit expand its business market by enabling consumers to do more than count steps and track sleep with their activity trackers.
“Twine Health has delivered powerful results for patients managing conditions like diabetes and hypertension – two key focus areas for Fitbit,” Fitbit Inc CEO James Park said in a statement. “Together, we can help healthcare providers better support patients beyond the walls of the clinical environment, which can lead to better health outcomes and ultimately, lower medical costs.”
Health coaching platform
Once the acquisition is complete, Twine Health’s team will join Fitbit as part of its Health Solution group, and Twine Health co-founder and CEO Dr. John Moore will become Fitbit’s medical director.
The company’s latest acquisition comes on the heels of around five other acquisitions made by the company to help it enter the corporate healthcare world. Past acquisitions include Vector Watch, Pebble, and a startup called Switch2Health which tracks and rewards employees’ fitness efforts.
Teaming up with Twine Health will help Fitbit "expand its offerings to health plans, health systems and self-insured employers, while creating opportunities to increase subscription-based revenue,” the company said.
Lifestyle interventions
By integrating Twine Health’s software and services designed to help people meet their health goals, Fitbit wants to help consumers stick to their plans of accomplishing goals like losing weight or quitting smoking.
Twine Health uses artificial intelligence and human interaction to help its 25 million users better manage their health. After creating a health plan with specific objectives, users are sent reminders and connected to their coach and doctor to help them follow through with the lifestyle changes needed to achieve their goal.
Fitbit says the acquisition will let users merge data from their wearable devices with Twine’s services.
“Obviously it’s still in the very early days,” Fitbit CEO James Park told Fortune. “We’re starting to put together all the pieces. This acquisition of Twine also will help our momentum in building more of a bigger revenue business on the health side.”
The acquisition is expected to close by the end of March.