Given the growing rate of obesity in the United States, weight management is a topic of interest for health systems nationwide. Patients at a healthy weight reduce their risk of chronic diseases, surgical complications, and other health problems, thereby achieving better outcomes at lower costs. And with the emergence of new GLP-1 medications—including the announcement that Medicare may cover these drugs for treatment of obesity—the issue has further crept into the spotlight. Currently, Medicare Part D plans do not cover GLP-1 drugs when used for weight loss.
Obesity and weight management: How digital health solutions can help
There are plenty of non-pharmaceutical and non-surgical options to help patients manage their weight, many of which are highly effective. And in an era where patients are using more digital patient engagement solutions, there is more openness to try technology-based interventions for weight management. Here’s why:
- Education and empowerment. Many weight management tools and solutions deliver clinically approved content to help patients understand their eating habits and hunger cues more effectively. These technology-assisted weight management tools also provide healthy food suggestions and help patients address their weight using a multi-faceted approach that includes nutrition, exercise, hormones, mental health, sleep, and other important principles of weight management.
- Patient-centric technology. With user-friendly interfaces, personalized content, and seamless communication channels, patient engagement is easy. Technology-based interventions for weight management make it easy for patients to track and self-monitor their diet, physical activity, weight, and other important health information and see trends over time.
- Personalized care. Obesity and weight management tools and solutions frequently offer personalized food plans based on sound principles of weight management, tailored calorie trackers, customized data-driven health insights, and other alerts to support patients in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. These features allow health systems to promote personalized healthcare by leveraging individualized data to shift from a one-size-fits-all approach to a more personalized healthcare model.
What types of technology-based interventions for weight management are currently available on the market today? Consider the following:
- Personal digital assistants and smartphone apps. These technology-assisted weight management tools promote adherence to self-monitoring, facilitate goal achievement, and enhance supportive accountability.
- Social media interventions. These include the use of social media groups to increase social support to facilitate health behavior change and goal attainment.
- Text messaging interventions. These technology-assisted weight management tools include personalized feedback via text message regarding goal attainment or self-monitoring, reminders, behavioral tips to help support weight loss. Messages vary in terms of content and frequency.
- Virtual reality interventions. These technology-based interventions for weight management create immersive experiences that can facilitate behavior change. This includes exposure therapy for food cravings, realistic portion size visualization, and even gamification of healthy eating habits.
- Wearable sensors. These include patient engagement technology that continuously collects and monitors physiology and behavioral data to provide ‘in the moment’ information.
- Web-based interventions. These include weight loss and maintenance programs that patients access via the Internet.
Looking ahead: Technology-assisted weight management
As with any digital health tool and solution to improve population health and promote value-based care, health systems leveraging obesity and weight management tools and solutions must be mindful of data security, the ability to evolve with changing user preferences, clinical effectiveness based on trusted principles of weight management, return on investment, and more. Panda Health can help you find obesity weight management tools and solutions that will work for your patient population. Learn how.
