Tech To Measure Employee Health and Wellbeing
In episode 380 of the HRchat podcast, we consider tech to monitor and assess employee health and wellbeing.
My guest this time is Dr. Don Brown, Founder, and CEO of LifeOmic, a software company that leverages the cloud, machine learning, and mobile devices to offer disruptive solutions to healthcare providers, researchers, employers, health coaches, health IT companies and individuals. His first company was acquired by EDS in 1986. He founded Software Artistry in 1988 which became the first software company in Indiana ever to go public and was later acquired by IBM for $200 million. Don then founded and served as CEO of Interactive Intelligence which went public in 1999 and was acquired by Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories in 2016 for $1.4 billion.
Don received a bachelor’s in physics from Indiana University in 1978, a master’s in computer science from IU in 1982, an MD from the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1985, and a master’s in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University in 2017.
Questions For Don Include:
- LifeOmic had its start in the oncology space around healthcare data aggregation and visualization. How has this background informed your approach to corporate wellness?
- What value does a medical-grade approach to employee health and wellness have for both the employees and the employers?
- The core of the LifeOmic Precision Wellness solution is the five pillars of health – plant-based nutrition, activity, mindfulness, sleep, and intermittent fasting. Based on hundreds of scientific studies, these pillars will, your team claims, improve your employees’ health. Can you tell us more about the five pillars of health and ways HR can be more mindful of each to encourage better habits in the workplace?
- Using your tools, employees can do self mini-checkups using fitness wearables, connected scales, blood pressure cuffs, spirometers, and more to monitor their improvements. You support seamless connection to Fitbit, Oura, and all Healthkit devices. Can you tell me more about how the tech can monitor employee health in real-time?
- Using advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence, LifeOmic Precision Wellness aims to create and deliver tailored recommendations to improve health as well as identify areas employees should proactively discuss with their doctors. Many HR pros remain skeptical about the pervasiveness of AI and machine learning as prescriptive tech. How does your AI work and what would you say to any doubters out there?
- You recently launched LIFE Ascent, a 52 week guided program that empowers individuals to start building sustainable healthy habits. This content is something that employers can include in their Precision Wellness program. What kind of impact can a program like this have on employees?
- You say that your wellness solutions can scale to any size organization or team. Can you share how a company can introduce a wellness solution that’s able to scale at speed? What are the checks one can put in place in the initial testing phase and throughout the rollout to endure each and every employee has the (education to) access to the solution?