New Discovery Health App Revealed
Discovery Health has revealed the new Discovery Health App in South Africa. According to Discovery, the App is available to all members of Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS) immediately and will be made available to additional Discovery customers in due course.
“The new Discovery Health App is the digital front door to the health system for our customers, providing a single access point through which health consumers can meet all their digital healthcare needs,” explains Dr Ryan Noach, CEO of Discovery Health.
The App allows customers to seamlessly navigate and managed their health plan benefits. It offers personalised recommendations – “Just For You” – of lifestyle and healthcare interventions to improve wellbeing and care. Discovery says, the app also provides access to three market-first digital healthcare innovations: Speak to a Doctor Now, Virtual Physical Therapy and Digital Therapeutics for Mental Health, the latter with a focus on internet-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for people at risk or living with depression.
“We’ve listened carefully to customers and conducted extensive analysis including more than 2,000 hours of digital focus groups to understand the healthcare priorities of members within the medical schemes which we administer,” explains Dr Noach. “In designing the app features and usability, we’ve carefully analysed how, when, where and why customers interact with the healthcare system and the elements that could improve both their wellbeing, and their experience of the healthcare system.”
Speak to a Doctor Now
Customers can speak to a doctor on-demand, 24-7 and also summon immediate help in an emergency, geolocated to your current position
The service is ideal for anyone who may need to access medical care when traditional options for medical help are less accessible. For example, parents who may need guidance on how to deal with a sick child after a workday or in the middle of the night.
Customers using this service on the app have various options:
• In an emergency, hit one button on the app which immediately and automatically geo-locates the user, and summons emergency medical services to your location. There is also a transfer of relevant clinical records to the emergency services to enable improved care.
• In non-urgent situations, individuals can choose to book an appointment with their own doctor, or a range of doctors on the Discovery Health network for a time that suits them. A fully integrated booking system facilitates this interaction with health professionals.
• For an immediate doctor consultation, customers can access immediate urgent care from a panel of emergency doctors.
“To ensure immediate 24/7 access to an urgent doctor consultation, Discovery Health has partnered with a highly skilled group of emergency room doctors from ER Consulting Inc (ERC). Through the ERC emergency support call centre, these doctors are always available for virtual consultations through the Discovery Health App, facilitating an immediate consultation, a treatment plan and where necessary, scripted medicine. They will refer customers for face-to-face consultations or emergency care when needed, and can dispatch an ambulance to the user’s location. Prescribed medicine can be delivered on the same day during business hours or collected from an after-hours pharmacy.”
According to Discovery, Speak to a Doctor Now is funded by Discovery Health Medical Scheme through a dedicated new risk benefit, for urgent care. Non-urgent care is funded from members’ available day-to-day plan benefits.
Virtual Physical Therapy
Individuals can access professional support for musculoskeletal rehabilitation through the app.
“Evidence shows that only 50% of patients adhere fully to their home recovery exercise programmes,” says Dr Noach. “Available evidence demonstrates that ongoing daily support to comply with a rehabilitation programme and prescribed exercises, significantly improves recovery. Now, through Virtual Physical Therapy on the Discovery Health App, in partnership with Genie Health, customers can access in-app support for their prescribed physical and rehabilitation programme. Through this highly sophisticated platform, whilst doing the rehab exercises, the patient’s movement is tracked using computer vision through their device camera. An artificial intelligence engine is applied which ensures that the form is correct, and thus that they benefit maximally from their home exercise programme. Patients also have access to remote monitoring and coaching for better recovery outcomes through virtual consultations or through the available in-app-chat functionality. The combination of properly executed exercises, higher compliance and coaching leads to better rehabilitation outcomes, as well as a more satisfactory experience for both the treating healthcare professional and the rehabilitated patient.”
Genie Health is Discovery’s partner in the app to provide this virtual rehabilitation service.
“We are incredibly proud to be bringing our virtual and hybrid Musculo Skeletal rehabilitation solution to South Africa”, says Deon Bührs Managing Director of Genie Health South Africa. “As the very first monitored virtual Musculo-skeletal platform in the country, we are excited by the opportunities to improve care and rehabilitation outcomes for these health professionals and their patients. We are excited to be partnering with Discovery Health to lead innovative improvements in care representing a great alignment of strategy and vision between our companies.”
Digital Therapeutics for Mental Health
Introducing the Mental Health Assessment Benefit, available to all customers. Discovery customers now have access to internet-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (iCBT) to treat depression.
In 2019, DHMS launched the Mental Health Care Programme, providing affected members with structured support for mental illness. Two years later, the Mental Health Care Programme was enhanced to create expanded access, a richer risk-funded basket-of-care and the introduction of the Relapse Prevention Programme.
In 2024, DHMS will increase the focus on early intervention in mental illness, through in-app mental healthcare offerings and treatment:
1. The new Mental Health Assessment in the new App
Within the Discovery Health app, all customers can undertake a quick and easy mental wellbeing assessment. The assessments meet recognised clinical screening standards for both depression (PHQ-9) and anxiety (GAD-7). Once completed, the assessment results and clinical data are used to evaluate the customer’s risk of mental illness, stratify these risks and provide relevant risk-funded interventions for at-risk individuals.
2. South Africa’s first funded digital therapeuticfor mental health, offering internet-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (iCBT) to support the treatment of depression.
The Discovery Health App makes South Africa’s first funded digital therapeutic – or ‘DTx’ –available to customers aged 18 years or older, who live with a diagnosis or symptoms of depression. This service is provided by Discovery Health in partnership with SilverCloud by Amwell, a globally leading and clinically validated digital behavioural health and wellbeing platform.
“Digital Therapeutics are a new class of therapy, prescribed by a healthcare professional and registered with the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA). The Discovery Health internet-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (iCBT) solution, delivered in partnership with Silvercloud, provides exclusive access to this innovative iCBT technology to customers of Discovery Health in South Africa, and must be prescribed by your health professional as they would for medicine and other treatments,” adds Dr Noach.
Prescribed by a healthcare professional (GP, psychologist or psychiatrist), this digital therapeutic within the Discovery Health app gives customers unique access to internet-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (iCBT), funded from the Scheme’s risk pool, on the Mental Health Care Programme. According to Discovery, evidence shows that, to treat depression and anxiety, iCBT is equally effective to CBT delivered face-to-face. The benefits of providing customers access to this tool include allowing patients to access care 24-7, no matter where they are located. Care and treatment can also be personalised to increase treatment effectiveness and outcomes.
Eligible customers can access:
• Engaging modules focussed on combatting depression or depression with anxiety.
• Personal supporters on hand to guide users through the modules.
• A 24-hour self-harm and suicide support for those with severe risk.
• Wellbeing modules for resilience, sleep and coping with stress.
As customers engage, real-time data is shared with the prescribing healthcare professional who can view and track progress in a dynamic feedback loop.
For those individuals who are not registered on the Mental Health Care Programme, the iCBT is funded from available day-to-day benefits, following the usual prescription from the treating healthcare professional.
The App can be downloaded as follows:
• For Android, download the Health App on Google Play for your phone or tablet.
• For iOS, open the “App Store” tab on your iPhone or iPad and download the new Health App.