Keeping Track Always

AI-powered, personalised ‘digital drugs’ are a reality now in health interventions.

- P.B. Jayakumar

SUNIL KUMAR, (name changed), a middle-aged IT professional from suburban Mumbai, found that he had high levels of blood sugar and symptoms of Type II diabetes after a routine blood test. The diabetologist prescribed a few medicines. But the last one jotted down after obtaining Kumar’s consent, took him by surprise. It was a mobile app called Wellthy Care.

The next day he got a call from Wellthy Therapeutics and soon, a kit with a blood glucose monitoring equipment and an ‘activation card’ was home-delivered. Since then, Wellthy is monitoring Kumar’s movements via his smartphone. If he orders a pizza from his mobile app or books a weekend movie ticket using his smartphone, he starts getting alerts on last week’s sugar levels and tips via chat on advisable food for the day and the week ahead. At times, the alert goes to his wife, Suma, advising her to include more salads and vegetables in Kumar’s lunchbox.

That is not all. If Kumar’s smartphone does not record any movement for hours, Carey, the personal health coach on the app, says, “Why don’t you talk to your client while walking to and fro to burn a few calories?” Despite being under constant surveillance, Kumar is happy. So are his family and his doctor. His food habits and health are going the way they want, and his sugar levels are under control.

Welcome to an all-new world of personalised, digital health care as Mumbai-based Wellthy Therapeutics claims to be India’s (and possibly South Asia’s) first and only ‘prescription digital therapeutics’ company.

What Is Digital Therapeutics