The news: Digital health marketplace Solera Health is partnering with Oshi Health and Vivante Health to expand its digital chronic disease management programs to incorporate individually tailored digestive health solutions for patients.

More on Solera: Solera is a health benefits network that connects patients, payers, and providers with digital health and SDOH-focused offerings.

• It currently offers digital therapy solutions for a range of chronic conditions like diabetes, as well as mental health, musculoskeletal conditions, and tobacco cessation.
• Its SDOH efforts include services that address social isolation and loneliness.

How Oshi and Vivante work:

• Oshi Health helps people manage gastrointestinal (GI) conditions like IBS and Crohn’s disease by creating personalized care plans. It connects patients to a virtual care team of GI specialists, as well as online health coaching and health tracking tools.
• Vivante Health also offers an all-in-one digital digestive health platform (GIThrive) that lets users access a personalized care plan and lets employers and health plans analyze GI health-related claims.

The bigger picture: The prevalence of GI conditions in the US is high, and personalized digital digestive health programs can fit neatly with health benefits covering chronic conditions.

• Personalized plans are particularly valuable for people with GI conditions since gut health is so variable from person to person.
• 60 million to 70 million people are affected by GI conditions in the US, per the NIH.

The cost of gut health: GI conditions are a top three specialty care cost category, meaning it’s a top healthcare cost driver for employers and insurers.

• Around $136 billion is spent on GI conditions annually— more than heart disease ($113 billion) and mental health ($99 billion).

What’s next? There’s rising interest in at-home diagnostic solutions to help drive preventative healthcare and lower healthcare spending. This creates a perfect storm for digital gut health programs to integrate RPM devices or other at-home diagnostics solutions to elevate the quality of metrics and care used in these programs.

• For example, digestive health startup FoodMarble’s breath-based digestive health testing innovation lets users breathe into the device and test hydrogen and methane levels to monitor how certain foods may trigger a problematic response.