24th March 2023

The journey to 100k users: a my mhealth milestone to remember.

my mhealth is proud to announce that it has reached a significant milestone of 100,000 users on its digital therapeutics platform.

The my mhealth platform for long-term conditions is designed to enhance service delivery, supporting improved patient outcomes, increased patient access and engagement, resulting in improved use of healthcare resources.

Founded in 2012 by two respiratory physicians, Dr Simon Bourne and Professor Tom Wilkinson set out to provide a comprehensive platform for managing respiratory conditions, to reach more patients and deliver quality care at scale. Since then, the platform has rapidly expanded to cover four major long term conditions; Asthma, COPD, diabetes and heart disease.

What was the inspiration behind the my mhealth platform?

Dr Simon Bourne saw the potential digital could have in his own work.

“I was a respiratory consultant at the time in Southampton running the community COPD team. It became clear early that the service did not have the capacity to deliver expert care to all 6000 people diagnosed with that condition in the city. I have always been interested in tech and websites and saw this as a way of reaching a much larger population, as long as we could prove the standard of service was at least equal to a face-face intervention. So we launched my mhealth limited at Southampton Science Park, and with funding from the SBRI, built and trialled the world’s first digital therapeutic for patients with COPD”.

Similarly, drawing on his own experience, Professor Tom Wilkinson comments

“As a clinician caring for patients with chronic lung conditions it was clear that many patients weren’t receiving the key aspects of care they required to optimise their health. Our NHS team was expert but small and there was not enough capacity to support every patient when they needed it. The inspiration for our first app myCOPD were the patients who had become truly expert in managing their own condition, understood what to do and when to reach for help. The my mhealth platform was developed to support and empower everyone to self-manage effectively and the drive to spread that across the NHS for all patients has been the key to our progress.”

What does this achievement mean?

Reaching the milestone of 100,000 registered users not only indicates a growing demand for innovative healthcare solutions but is also a testament to the company's unwavering dedication to transforming healthcare by providing cutting-edge technology and innovative solutions that address the evolving needs of patients and healthcare providers.

Commenting on the journey, Professor Tom Wilkinson said:

“By any standards this is a remarkable achievement which everyone in the company, our clinical partners and collaborators should be proud of. 10 years ago, Simon and I imagined that if we developed and tested digital therapeutics in the right way we could support more patients than we ever could using conventional models of care. That vision is now a reality. A clinician can see 10-20 patients in a clinic- and may get to review a patient every six months or more. With the my mhealth platform we can help support 100,000 users daily and that number is growing exponentially now. That’s a lifetime of a practitioner’s positive clinical impact delivered everyday of the year- which is such a great outcome.”

Dr Simon Bourne shares his thoughts:

“This is a huge milestone in the history of digital therapeutics. We knew that the digital therapeutics, once in the hands of patients could improve the outcomes and symptoms of patients, and once a patient was invited to download the app, activation and engagement was excellent. The problem to solve was, how do we get this to patients with a confirmed diagnosis of the condition. It took us a while to develop the solutions with NHS partners that would enable us to scale to more than 100,000 users. The key was the development of a new role, known as a digital health adviser, who work between the digital therapeutic, the patient and the service to drive uptake and engagement”.

What’s next for my mhealth?

The company is well positioned to continue leading the way in digital therapeutics and making a positive impact on the lives of many worldwide.

“We are deploying our digital therapeutics for long-term conditions now across more ICB footprints this year. Working with NHS partners we can now scale this to improve outcomes of patients, and within current budget constraints. We are planning our US launch, initially with myCOPD and translating our myHeart app with European clinical teams to enter clinical trials soon. With NIHR funding, through the NHSx AI awards we are also investigating other solutions to improve the outcomes of patients with COPD”.

Said Dr Simon Bourne.

Looking to the future, Professor Tom Wilkinson comments

“The real impacts of our work are ahead- we are rapidly growing our user base, working with more and more clinical teams and synergistically driving an evolution into digitally enhanced care at a time the NHS really needs it. Excitingly are expanding overseas to India, the US and into Europe, building our evidence base for efficacy and value as we go. For a decade we have been at the vanguard of digital therapeutic development and delivery and in another 10 years we aim to be a major contributor to improvements in global health”.

Further information

Email:support@mymhealth.com
Call: +44 (0)1202 299 583

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