CHICAGO – Higi, a consumer health engagement company and wholly-owned subsidiary of Babylon, that joined the American Heart Association’s Center for Health Technology & Innovation Innovators’ Network in November of 2020, announced Tuesday the launch of its Health Guide program, a solution focused on providing personalized, actionable opportunities for improving blood pressure.

The Health Guide program is an enhancement of the existing Higi platform and is delivered via Higi’s nationwide network of nearly 10,000 FDA-cleared, free-to-use self-screening Smart Health Stations, as well as home health devices, digital and mobile tools. The Health Guide program provides easy-to-use access to best-in-class science from the American Heart Association via the Association’s CarePlans. CarePlans provide participants with information based on self-selected health topics, providing actionable guidance designed to help them better manage their blood pressure.

The Health Guide program aims to help participants who may lack the time, knowledge, or resources to address their risk factors better understand and manage hypertension and empowers them to take action to work toward improved health. This newest program is part of Higi’s ongoing work to meet consumers where they are in their healthcare journeys, and deliver affordable, quality healthcare that’s accessible to all. According to data collected by Higi in an earlier iteration of the program, nearly 60% of participants had blood pressure readings in the hypertensive range, yet only 28% had received a hypertension diagnosis from a healthcare professional and only 39% self-identified as actively working to better manage their blood pressure.

“With over 64% of last year’s blood pressure screenings on our platform indicating hypertension risk, it was incumbent upon us to provide additional support and guidance to the millions of people using our platform” said Jeff Bennett, Higi CEO. “Over the past few years, we’ve focused on enhancing our platform capabilities to enable consumers to gain a better understanding of their personal health risks and providing educational tools to empower them to address risk factors. On behalf of our platform users, as well as our retail healthcare, health plan, health system and community partners who care for them, we were determined to develop a scalable solution that goes beyond identification to focus on digital chronic condition management allowing the consumer to monitor, understand, and work toward improving their health. For those healthcare and community partners, this new tool can provide a cost-effective and accessible means to monitor lower risk populations as well as identify indicators of risk and effectively triage into higher touch solutions, which we can facilitate through our clinical network.”

Health care organizations seeking community-based solutions to scale access to remote monitoring can leverage the tool to deliver science-based, trusted health guidance and as a detection framework to identify consumers at risk and triage them to appropriate care resources.

“Every person deserves the opportunity for a full and healthy life. The American Heart Association’s science-based CarePlans leverage best-in-class science from the Association, with the aim of improving health education and health engagement,” said Dr. Eric Peterson, vice provost and senior associate dean for Clinical Research at University of Texas Southwestern and chair of the Health Tech Advisory Group for the Center. “Our work with Higi is a good example of how the Association’s Center for Health Technology & Innovation is helping companies to develop new digital health solutions to engage patients and inform clinicians.”