Fitbit expands health platform for employers called Fitbit Care

Fitbit

• Fitbit has a plan to help it stay relevant as it faces more
  competition from companies like Apple and Garmin. 
• It’s launching Fitbit Care, a health platform that combines
  coaching, virtual care, wearable devices, and self-tracking to
  help employers’ and health plans’ employees and members get
  healthier. 
• For now, the program is just for
  consumers whose employers, health plans, or health systems opt
  into it.

Fitbit is making a move to become more than just a fitness device
at a time when wearable competition is fierce. 

The company on Wednesday announced the launch of Fitbit
Care, a health platform that combines coaching, virtual care,
wearable devices, and self-tracking.

Best known for its simple fitness band aimed at getting
people moving, Fitbit
is developing new products as its stock price has taken a tumble
amid competition from companies like Apple.  

After Apple debuted its new watch, which includes features
like new heart-rate tracking and fall detection, shares of Fitbit
fell earlier in September as much as 6%. 

Here’s how Fitbit Care works: The platform encompasses Fitbit’s
wearable band, which tracks sleep habits, activity, heart rate,
and female health. Then, through a new Fitbit Plus app used on a
smartphone users can get health coaching sessions and
virtual care to help them reach a particular health goal, such as
lowering blood pressure. 

For now, the program is just for people whose employers, health
plans, or health systems opt into it and pay Fitbit on a per
member per month basis. That means individual people can’t sign
up to use the program on their own, at least for now. 

“With healthcare costs and rates of chronic disease increasing,
there is a clear need for innovative tools and services to help
people make the lifestyle and behavior changes necessary to
reverse this trend,” Adam Pellegrini, the general manager of
Fitbit Health Solutions, said in a news release. 

For many Americans, their employers are the ones picking up
the tab for their healthcare. More 
than
half of the non-elderly
 population is covered by
an employer-sponsored healthcare plan, and almost
80% 
of
large companies are self-insured
.

As healthcare costs go up, employers are the ones feeling
the pressure. 
Some
are starting to get fed up 
and looking for new
ideas. Platforms like Fitbit Cares are one of those ideas. In
addition to employers, Fitbit said that about 5 million Humana
members — those in its employer group segment — will have access
to Fitbit Cares coaching.

See also: 

Get the latest Fitbit stock price here.