Lifelong Health by Design
Omada Health grows from an IDEO research project to a healthcare provider fighting chronic disease.
Navigating chronic conditions isn’t easy. After all, so much of managing issues like diabetes comes down to small decisions that happen between visits to the doctor. Too many patients don’t have the kind of support that they need: convenient, evidence-based, and easily accessible. And employers are having to shoulder the ever increasing cost of care. In 2011, two IDEOers founded Omada Health to help fill that gap and create a more human-centered approach to health care. The platform combines digital tools, behavior change methods, and health coaching to improve outcomes, while lowering costs. More than a decade after its founding, one million lifetime members have enrolled with Omada Health to manage their weight, pre-diabetes, diabetes, behavioral health, hypertension, and joint and muscle health, and build a foundation for lifelong better health.
Nearly 2,000
employers now partner with Omada
One in 10
commercially-insured Americans have access to Omada through their health plan or employer coverage
About 60 percent of adults in the U.S. live with a chronic disease.
Diabetes is the country’s seventh leading cause of death—and the most expensive. Diabetes accounts for $1 out of every $4 in U.S. healthcare costs. In addition to the cost of care, diabetes costs employers $90 billion annually in lost productivity.
90 percent of the nation’s $4.1 trillion annual healthcare expenditures are for people with chronic and mental health conditions. (CDC)
Design thinking was embedded in the creation of Omada Health from the earliest phases, and Omada has taken that forward as a strategy for success.
Over the past decade, the digital health company has grown from a couple of early career IDEOers testing concepts at the very frontier of digital health, to a company with nearly 2000 employers on its customer roster and more than one million users of its healthcare products.
Omada’s origin story began at IDEO in 2011, when its now CEO, Sean Duffy, an MD/MBA student at Harvard, joined IDEO as an intern, after a partner found his resume on the copy room floor. What was supposed to be a summer internship led to an exploration of the potential impact of digital tools on chronic health problems. IDEO partner Dennis Boyle gave Duffy and his co-founder and fellow IDEOer, Adrian James, the time and funding to do human factors research, meeting with people with prediabetes and metabolic disease in their homes to learn more about the care they were getting. What they heard was that no product or service was meeting the realities of their daily lives.
Five months after he landed his internship, and with the company’s blessing, Duffy and James spun Omada Health out of IDEO. Together, they raised a seed round, and continued to lean on design thinking methods, prototyping early versions of their product, then testing it with real patients. Duffy himself even served as the company’s first health coach. By sticking with the mindsets they had learned at IDEO, they avoided the pitfall of falling in love with the popular approaches to digital health of the era—like detailed food tracking or bluetooth enabled pill bottle tops. Instead, they stayed focused on creating what patients were asking for: a digital product that provided support, accountability, and evidence-based solutions.
Today, Omada Health is a virtual-first, integrated care solution that provides patients with clinical care plans using digital tools and one-on-one, personalized coaching. It helps users manage chronic conditions including pre-diabetes, diabetes, hypertension, joint and muscle health, and behavioral health. More than a decade after its founding, it counts nearly 2000 employers as customers, has more than one million users of its products, and has published 24 peer-reviewed studies on its outcomes. But it’s still going after its North Star: to bend the curve on preventable chronic diseases nationwide.
Design thinking was embedded in the creation of Omada Health from the earliest phases, and Omada has taken that forward as a strategy for success.
Over the past decade, the digital health company has grown from a couple of early career IDEOers testing concepts at the very frontier of digital health, to a company with nearly 2000 employers on its customer roster and more than one million users of its healthcare products.
Omada’s origin story began at IDEO in 2011, when its now CEO, Sean Duffy, an MD/MBA student at Harvard, joined IDEO as an intern, after a partner found his resume on the copy room floor. What was supposed to be a summer internship led to an exploration of the potential impact of digital tools on chronic health problems. IDEO partner Dennis Boyle gave Duffy and his co-founder and fellow IDEOer, Adrian James, the time and funding to do human factors research, meeting with people with prediabetes and metabolic disease in their homes to learn more about the care they were getting. What they heard was that no product or service was meeting the realities of their daily lives.
Five months after he landed his internship, and with the company’s blessing, Duffy and James spun Omada Health out of IDEO. Together, they raised a seed round, and continued to lean on design thinking methods, prototyping early versions of their product, then testing it with real patients. Duffy himself even served as the company’s first health coach. By sticking with the mindsets they had learned at IDEO, they avoided the pitfall of falling in love with the popular approaches to digital health of the era—like detailed food tracking or bluetooth enabled pill bottle tops. Instead, they stayed focused on creating what patients were asking for: a digital product that provided support, accountability, and evidence-based solutions.
Today, Omada Health is a virtual-first, integrated care solution that provides patients with clinical care plans using digital tools and one-on-one, personalized coaching. It helps users manage chronic conditions including pre-diabetes, diabetes, hypertension, joint and muscle health, and behavioral health. More than a decade after its founding, it counts nearly 2000 employers as customers, has more than one million users of its products, and has published 24 peer-reviewed studies on its outcomes. But it’s still going after its North Star: to bend the curve on preventable chronic diseases nationwide.
“Over a decade later, I still reflect on the ‘north-stars’ I learned at IDEO, and the power of deeply, reflectively listening to the needs of users and watching their behaviors as the one and only truth. Our IDEO roots helped grow branches that still benefit the business and our members today.”
