HRTech interview with Maayan Cohen, Co-Founder, and CEO of Hello Heart

Maayan Cohen sheds light on how have HR and benefits leaders shifted focus around employee benefits and digital health over the last few years.

1. Can you give us a brief of your career before Hello Heart?

• Yes, of course! For a little background on me, I’m originally from Israel and my experiences there have led me to where I am today as the co-founder and CEO of Hello Heart. In Israel, I quickly developed a passion for healthcare as a teenager when I became an ambulance volunteer and later went on to earn my bachelor’s degree in biotechnology from Tel Aviv University. Before earning my bachelor’s degree, I started my career in the Israeli Army and developed leadership skills as a tank and mortar platoon specialist where I commanded an all-male group.
• Upon graduation, I joined a leading management consulting firm, and within a few years decided to pursue my MBA in Entrepreneurship & Innovation to expand my career and make a stronger impact. I then transitioned to the retail and consumer goods practice within the firm, where I honed my skills in strategy and consumer behavior and managed several successful new-product launch projects for industry leaders like Hyundai, Nestle and American Express.
• Taking my passion for healthcare, my past leadership experiences, and the expertise in consumer behavior and new product launches I had gained, I knew I was ready to come to Silicon Valley once I had my idea to start Hello Heart. I came here with nothing but my experiences, a suitcase, and a bicycle, to start building the company.

2. Could you tell us more about Hello Heart and what was the inspiration behind starting this company?

• The reason I started Hello Heart is a very personal one. One of my loved ones received a cancer diagnosis, and as I was trying to take care of them and manage their health, I realized how difficult that can be. I was tracking vitals, collecting medical records, and spending hours and hours on research trying to comprehend it all. I quickly realized that I wasn’t alone in this struggle and wanted to help others navigate similar situations. I was determining the best way to make an impact and realized there’s no better place to start than heart disease, the leading cause of death across the globe. With Hello Heart, I wanted to give people the tools to understand, manage and ultimately improve their heart health. Now, we reach millions of people through our partnerships with employers, who offer Hello Heart as a part of their benefits offerings.

3. Could you tell us what is setting you apart from your competitors?

• Firstly, Hello Heart is the only digital therapeutics company that focuses exclusively on heart disease. There are several solutions on the market that offer chronic disease management, but they lack focus on heart health. Yet heart disease is the leading cause of death and a significant cost driver for employers. In fact, employers spend an average of $9,842 in total medical costs for people with hypertension.
• Beyond that, Hello Heart differentiates itself in three ways: user engagement, proven outcomes, and being easy for employers to partner with.
  • Engaging: Our enrollment (20% after year 1) and engagement rates (more than 60% of users continue after the first year) prove that people will actually use our program, leading to a healthier population. The average traditional blood pressure programs have low single-digit enrollment rates, and much lower sustained engagement rates. Hello Heart drives industry-leading engagement and long-term behavior change by getting users hooked on healthy habits. Users love that it’s an all-digital solution available anytime and from anywhere, private, personalized, while being easy and fun to use.
  • Proven: Benefits leaders can justify their decision with peer-reviewed clinical outcomes and certified cost savings. In a peer-reviewed clinical study published in a top-tier medical journal, JAMA Network Open, our coaching app was shown to reduce blood pressure – 84% of Hello Heart users with stage II hypertension reduced their blood pressure and sustained it over three years. A Validation Institute report of employer medical claims analysis found our program reduced total employer medical spend by an average of $1,865 per participant in the first year alone.
  • Easy: Benefits leaders can focus on other priorities since we do all the heavy lifting. In most cases, clients are able to leverage existing relationships (such as their health plan or PBM) to add Hello Heart to their benefits offering, and fits seamlessly into their benefits ecosystem. We do nearly all of the work and give clients control over how involved they want to be. We also cover all of the costs for implementation, marketing, and supporting onsite events.

4. Your mission says “We empower people to understand and manage their heart health using technology and behavioral science.” Can you shed some light on this?

• Our priority is making it easy for people to manage their heart health and develop healthier lifestyle habits. The Hello Heart app achieves this with real-time and simple to understand tracking that’s displayed on the mobile app, which people can access anytime and anywhere, 24/7. The behavioral science aspect comes to fruition with our AI-powered personalized coaching. For example, if someone’s blood pressure is trending high, the app will suggest personalized exercise tips – based on the readings and their behavior – that get them moving which can potentially help lower their blood pressure.

5. What features does your Hello Heart app offer?

• Our flagship solution is an FDA-cleared blood pressure monitor that’s coupled with the Hello Heart mobile app. When people use the blood pressure monitor, their numbers are sent and stored directly to the app so people can easily track and understand their blood pressure levels. Upon receiving the blood pressure levels, the Hello Heart app will send instant feedback on what the blood pressure level means for a person’s overall health. It also helps users catch blood pressure readings that are extremely high and encourages them to talk to their doctor to identify potential risk in time. The app also serves as users’ virtual medicine cabinet, allowing them to track their medications and set reminders to ensure they adhere to their doctor’s recommendations. Additionally, the app leverages the data and AI-based technology to provide personalized, digital coaching that helps people build healthier lifestyles.

6. Can you brief us on how organizations and people can benefit from Hello Heart?

• The true value of Hello Heart is that it’s effective in helping people create and sustain healthier lifestyle habits. Having hypertension puts you at risk for heart disease and stroke, which are the leading causes of death in the U.S. Hello Heart’s coaching app provides wellness tips that may help reduce the risk of hypertension.
  

  Making small changes and forming healthier habits may help reduce a person’s blood pressure, which can reduce their risk for heart disease and death.

• Employers see decreased health care expenses, and more importantly, happier and healthier employees. Diving further into the Validation Institute analysis, the cost savings of $1,895 per participant in the first year were largely driven by fewer surgeries, invasive procedures, and imaging. The analysis also observed an increase in costs for primary care visits among Hello Heart users, which may be attributable to the program encouraging users to engage in preventive care. This demonstrates just how effective preventative tools, support, and resources can be to the workforce.
• Beyond this, Hello Heart helps employers move the needle for another important workplace initiative: diversity, equity, and inclusion. Unfortunately, there are big disparities across gender, race, and socioeconomic status when it comes to cardiac care, but employers can play a role in closing these gaps by providing easier access to educational and actionable resources like Hello Heart.
  For example, many people might not know that heart attack symptoms differ between women and men. Alarmingly, women wait nearly 40 minutes longer to call for help when they’re experiencing heart attack symptoms. Additionally, people of color are more likely to experience complications from heart disease. As more and more companies start to sharpen their focus on DEI efforts, they can’t overlook the heart health of their employees.

7. Hello Heart has grown to a great extent since 2013. Can you give us an idea of how big it is today? Is there anything you want to share with our readers?

• We partner with over 60 large employers, with the majority being Fortune 500 organizations. Also, we’re experiencing rapid growth as benefits and wellness leaders continue to focus on digital therapeutics as an important aspect to an all-encompassing employee health benefits strategy. In the last year alone, we doubled the number of employer clients and now reach millions of people through the app.

8. How have you seen HR and benefits leaders shift focus around employee benefits and digital health over the last few years? Any advice for leaders as they look forward to strengthening their well-being strategy?

• Digital health adoption was accelerated by the pandemic. Over the last few years, we’ve seen HR and benefits leaders sharpen their focus on how they can support the holistic health of their employees, and many benefits leaders are turning to digital therapeutic offerings that put resources and tools directly in the hands of the employee. More specifically, we’re seeing employers prioritize the improvement of employee heart health as poor heart health remains a massive problem across the country – the CDC recently recommended that employers should provide coverage for automated home blood pressure monitors as an intervention. My advice to HR and benefits leaders is to remember that employers have a responsibility to help keep their employees healthy and they can make a difference by implementing stronger support tools.

9. What are your plans for expansion and growth? Top priorities for 2022?

• We strive to continually improve Hello Heart’s functionality and effectiveness. This includes deepening the AI applications within the digital coaching capabilities. We also intend to create more whole heart health functionalities that focus on things like more advanced medication tracking and adherence, cholesterol tracking, and more.

For more such Updates Log on to www.hrtechcube.com.