How healthbots can assist patients and HCPs

A year after healthbot Gyant launched, it has reached 800,000 users, according to Stefan Behrens, co-founder of Gyant.

MM&M – As HCPs continue to be stretched for time to diagnose and interact with patients, health bots could help reduce HCP workload and drive patient engagement.

“Remember to put ice on that bruise tonight,” says healthbot Gyant via Facebook Messenger. Gyant adds that Chris, the user engaging with the bot, could try playing Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice, Baby” to speed up the healing process.

The dialogue is conversational. Over the course of three to four minutes, Gyant asks around 20 questions to get at the cause of the user’s discomfort and offer possible diagnoses or recommendations. Users can also ask Gyant questions via Amazon’s Alexa.

“We’ve noticed the number of questions doesn’t matter as much as how you ask them and how you respond to people’s answers,” said Stefan Behrens, co-founder of Gyant. “If you ask question after question, it’s like filling [out] a form. We make sure our questions are asked in the nicest way possible, as human as possible.”

Since Gyant launched in 2016, it has reached 1.3 million users to date, Behrens claimed. Since Gyant originated as a resource to screen patients for Zika, much of its traffic comes from Latin American countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. The company is also generating traction in the southern parts of the U.S., Behrens added. Gyant is currently available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and German, and there are plans to expand in French, Chinese, Arabic, and Hindi.

Florence, Health Tap, Buoy Health, and Your.MD are among the other healthbots currently offering medication reminders, symptom checkers, health tips,doctor referrals, and other services.

“As doctors are more stretched for time, there’s a lot of frustration in the healthcare system,” said Paul Balagot, chief experience officer at Precisioneffect. “I think the appetite to use [bots] as a support tool is high.”

A new report by the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts that the shortfall of doctors will approach 90,000 by 2025. That number could reach nearly 105,000 by 2030.

According to Balagot, healthbots can potentially reduce the workload of healthcare professionals while providing an engaging experience to patients. They can help focus the patient-doctor conversation by checking initial symptoms and tracking patient history, then provide post-treatment support after the initial interaction.

For conditions such as diabetes, physicians may be able to help patients combat the overt symptoms. Still, they sometimes are unable to follow up with patients who need to make changes to their diets and exercise regimens. Behrens believes healthbots can provide the necessary support.

In addition, healthbots may ultimately help reduce the volume of unnecessary doctor visits. “If you look at primary care physicians, many of them will tell you that they can’t help 40% of the patients they see every week, because [the patient has] a viral infection, for example,” said Behrens. “So it’s, ‘Go home, get some rest, and take some ibuprofen,’ but you can’t do much about the source of the condition.”

In some cases, especially those where there is a stigma tied to a condition, chatbots have become a preferred means of securing healthcare advice. Behrens said many users ask Gyant mental and sexual health-related questions, which sometimes trigger feelings of shame and anxiety.

“A lot of the users are relatively younger — around 16 to 25 — and come from developing countries, where there is a lot of social stigma around marriage and social norms,” Behrens continued. “We see a lot of questions around, ‘I did this. Could I be pregnant?’ or ‘I have this rash.’”

Dawn Lacallade, chief social strategist and healthcare practice lead at social customer experience firm LiveWorld, senses a similar trend among clients like Anthem, Johnson & Johnson, and Boehringer Ingelheim. While she declined to offer program specifics, Lacallade said LiveWorld has helped one client develop a bot to collect data about sexual health in adolescents, with the ultimate aim of offering STD education.

“There’s often an intimidation factor when you’re talking to an HCP,” Lacallade explained. “A bot is a great tool to recap a conversation with an HCP, putting it in language to make it more understandable.”

As bot technology gets more sophisticated and chatbots secure HIPAA compliance, healthbots will start to realize their full potential.

“The first generation of chatbots was a bit robotic and didn’t have the advancements of natural language, sentiment, and emotion,” said Balagot. “With AI technology advancing, the chatbots are becoming increasingly empathetic and natural, and more engaging.”

It’s hard to be HIPAA-compliant when paired with social media platforms like Facebook, however,  which is why Gyant  is developing an app of its own. “We’re taking the same technology and chat experience, and putting it in an app or secure website. That will allow us to seamlessly move the conversation to an actual human provider, be it a doctor or administrator,” Behrens noted. “Ideally, we want to [help] people get prescriptions or [sign up for] a telemedicine visit.”

 

Lighthouse wins grand prize for voice-activated diabetes app at Hitlab

Lighthouse received $50,000 for its voice-activated application, designed to  provide more accessible and engaging care for diabetes patients.

MM&M – Lighthouse received $50,000 for application aimed at providing more accessible and engaging care for those living with diabetes.

The 2017 Hitlab Innovators Summit named Lighthouse as the winner of its World Cup Challenge, which focused on using voice-activated technology to improve healthcare access, delivery, and outcomes. Lighthouse received $50,000 for its voice-activated application, designed to provide more accessible and engaging care for diabetes patients.

“Lighthouse really honed in on an important gap — how can we expand patient support between appointments?” said Amy West, Novo Nordisk’s senior director of patient marketing and digital health innovation, and a judge of the challenge. “The ability to address this issue, coupled with Lighthouse’s seamless integration into the lives of patients, are the core reasons why it was selected as this year’s grand prize winner.”

“Lighthouse helps patients close that gap, build great habits, and support their broader care team in delivering the best care,” said Lighthouse CEO Dave Vockell.

Hitlab received 146 applications from 15 countries this year. Finalists made their pitches to a panel of judges at the three-day event held in New York City.

Judges evaluated their pitches according to the following criteria: impact, innovation, sustainability, and feasibility. Finalists included cloud-based app My Diabetes Coach, developed by Macadamian; virtual nutrition assistant T2D2; nutrition-tracking smart placemat Palette; and Proof, which supports patient/provider relationships.

Novo Nordisk, which sponsored the Innovators Summit, has yet to determine whether it will partner with any of finalists, said West. “Novo Nordisk will continue its foray into digital health by exploring many different opportunities that align with our business strategy.”

The company does, however, expect to embrace voice technology, according to David Moore, Novo’s commercial SVP. “We think about the fact that everyone will have a smartphone in the not-too-distant future. It’s a disruptive technology,” he said.

In January, Novo Nordisk announced a partnership with diabetes data management platform Glooko. In July, the companies launched Novo Nordisk’s Cornerstones4Care mobile app, which combines Novo Nordisk’s patient support with Glooko’s data analytics expertise. The drugmaker received FDA-approval for once-weekly injection Ozempic Tuesday, and markets diabetes drugs Victoza and Tresiba.

“For us, it’s just the start,” said Moore. “That’s why we’re here — to be very open and inquisitive to opportunities that may exist for us to collaborate, integrate further in connecting with consumers where they are in their journey, and realizing these are individuals carrying on daily activities with their disease, and to provide them better tools and resources.”

Diabetes is a condition which could greatly benefit from more pharma/tech collaboration, Moore added. “If you’re an employer, you’re looking for more productivity. If you’re a patient, you’re looking for more information and more personalized care. This integration in a digital platform around diabetes has the potential for a large impact.”

 

Wellpepper wins Alexa Diabetes Challenge

Wellpepper’s interactive diabetes care plan incorporates an Alexa-enabled scale into a patient’s mobile device.

MM&M – The health startup’s system has a foot scanner that can take photos of a patient’s feet and can look for potential foot ulcers using a machine learning image classifier.

The Alexa Diabetes Challenge, a new competition sponsored by Merck, awarded health startup Wellpepper the $125,000 grand prize for its voice-enabled mobile system, which aims to help diagnose and treat foot ulcers sooner for patients with type 2 diabetes.

The competition launched in April with an open call for concepts that seek to improve the experience of patients with type 2 diabetes using Amazon’s Alexa voice technology. The challenge received 96 submissions, from a range of organizations including research institutions, software companies, startups, and healthcare providers.

Wellpepper’s interactive diabetes care plan incorporates an Alexa-enabled scale into a patient’s mobile device. The scale has a foot scanner that can take photos of a patient’s feet and can look for potential foot ulcers using a machine learning image classifier, said Anne Weiler, co-founder and CEO of Wellpepper.

The plan, called Sugarpod, offers tailored tasks for patients based on their preferences, and it can send diabetes information, foot scan photos, and physician’s messages, using texts, emails, and the Sugarpod mobile app.

Using the voice-activated technology, patients can record blood glucose levels, blood pressure, receive educational information about diabetes and tips, and activate the use of the scale and foot scanner.

Foot ulcers are the leading cause of amputation and costs the health system $9 billion a year, according to the American Diabetes Association.

“Being able to detect them early, and do it at home, will help decrease costs and improve quality of life,” said Weiler.

“A person with diabetes or another chronic condition only sees their doctor four times a year,” said Kimberly Park, VP of customer strategy and innovation at Merck. “I would love to see how voice can support the patient’s goals for their own healthcare. It’s a technology that allows for much personalization and ease of interaction. You don’t have to use your thumbs to type or spell. It provides 24/7 support while you’re at home.”

Merck markets type 2 diabetes drugs Januvia and Janumet. In 2016, Januvia was the second top-selling product among metabolic brands in the U.S. in 2016, with a projected $2.39 billion in U.S. sales in 2016.

The drugmaker is considering a collaboration with Wellpepper and the other finalists of the challenge.

“We’ll work with our business development organizations to ensure we put the right processes in place,” said Park. “Based on the interest in the company, we’ll decide what the best path is for any potential collaborations.”

Other finalists in the competition include DiaBetty by the University of Illinois, My GluCoach by HCL America, PIA by Ejenta, and T2D2 by a Columbia University team.

 

Online patient communities consider the platform: Facebook, or somewhere more private?

Migraine.com is Health Union’s oldest and largest patient community, with more than 140,000 members on its Facebook page.

MM&M – Facebook itself has more than six million health-related groups.

As an expecting mother, Facebook executive Danielle Salowski is experiencing firsthand what it’s like to engage with online patient communities.

She is a member of two Facebook groups for mothers, where she can have daily conversations on topics ranging from where to find the best baby products and prenatal yoga classes to how to pick a pediatrician, she said.

“The community is incredibly open and active,” said Salowski, industry manager for Facebook Health. “I’ve met other expecting moms who have become ‘in-person’ friends in my area because of Facebook.”

Choosing to participate in online communities is a common behavior Facebook sees among new moms, whose use of the social platform increases by 348% by the end of a baby’s first year of life, noted Salowski.

According to a recent Wego Health survey of 433 members of online patient communities, 91% of respondents said those communities play a role in their health decisions. In addition, the patient advocacy network found that more of those patients (75%) share information privately through member-only groups, private phone calls, or emails, than publicly (61%) using Facebook posts, Tweets, or blog posts.

Facebook itself has more than six million health-related groups, with more than 70 million members, noted Salowski. And there are companies like Health Union and MyHealthTeams that focus on building patient communities on Facebook, as well as other social channels and domains.

MyHealthTeams’ MyMSTeam has more than 85,000 members.

What are the pros and cons of hosting a patient community on a social platform versus a standalone website? It comes down to a trade-off between an external social platform’s simplicity and accessibility, and the complexity and flexibility of a website dedicated specifically to the patient community, said Amrita Bhowmick, chief community officer at Health Union, which has 15 condition-specific patient communities, each with their own Facebook page, Twitter handle, Google Plus page and website. Its most active patient communities include Migraine.com, MultipleSclerosis.net, and RheumatoidArthritis.net, which each have a Facebook reach of up to two million visitors per month.

“Everyone’s on Facebook these days — you’re not asking them to go to a completely separate piece of real estate,” said Bhowmick. “But there are benefits on the other side. It might be more complex. [Users] need to sign up, learn how to use the site. However, you have a whole lot of flexibility. You can filter [and] set features that are most important to your members.”

There is also more flexibility when it comes to what users can post, added Bhowmick. “Sometimes, our community members will curse — they’re cursing at their condition, and it’s a really great way to vent,” she said. “Facebook will automatically filter those comments, which can then make them feel really badly.”

MyHealthTeams, which has about one million members across 25 condition-specific patient communities, focuses on standalone websites and mobile apps to engage its members. It has Facebook and Twitter pages for each of the conditions as well, but mainly uses them to introduce its communities to potential members.

“Many of our members don’t want to be talking about their chronic condition on an open network such as Facebook but do feel comfortable on a network designed just for people with the same disease or condition as them,” said Eric Peacock, co-founder and CEO of MyHealthTeams.

According to Peacock, between 20% and 50% of its members return monthly to the MyHealthTeams websites and mobile social networks. Its Parkinson’s disease group is one of its most engaged groups, with roughly half of its more than 32,000 members participating in conversations every month.

The sites and apps gather information such as when they were diagnosed, symptoms they have experienced, and the drugs they’re taking.

“A woman in her thirties who’s diagnosed with breast cancer and wants to get pregnant after chemo wants to connect with someone else who has dealt with or is dealing with this,” explained Peacock.

There’s no one size fits all solution, though, argued Tim Armand, president and co-founder of Health Union. “We analyze the market six months before entering it,” he said. “Then we have a read-and-react.”

MyHealthTeams and Health Union have branded pharmaceutical ads in their networks. MyHealthTeams works with drugmakers on sponsored unbranded education initiatives, and Health Union posts sponsored unbranded content on its Facebook pages about events drugmakers hope to promote. They offer aggregated, de-identified patient data to pharmaceutical companies, executives at both companies said.

Both Health Union and MyHealthTeams have worked with drugmakers to do research on how patients feel about the drugs they’re taking and how to match them with clinical trials.

“We sit between the patients wanting to find trials and sponsors wanting to find patients,” said Armand. “We help companies understand in the development process what kinds of outcomes would be meaningful to patients from the beginning, rather than when you have a product on the market.”

 

Half of clinical-trial sites offer free transportation to patients

MM&M – Consent forms and reimbursement are the main deterrents of offering the service.

A survey of about 430 clinical-trial sites in the U.S. found that the workload associated with creating consent forms and pursuing reimbursement from the trial sponsors is the main reason many of them do not offer transportation services to patients.

According to the survey, which was conducted by Continuum Clinical in February, only 44% of these sites offer free transportation assistance to people who are enrolled in their clinical trials. And of the sites that do offer transportation, 58% of them rely on taxi services, while 32% of them use ride-sharing companies such as Lyft and Uber. In January, Continuum announced a partnership with Lyft to offer free rides to patients enrolled in clinical trials organized by its clients, and interest is growing in using the ride-sharing services.

But there are underlying challenges with providing transportation to participants enrolled in clinical trials, said Nariman Nasser, vice president of site optimization at Continuum Clinical.

“Where the transportation service comes in is there needs to be consent for the patient to utilize the transportation option,” said Nasser.

Instead of having to go through patient consent forms that are often as long as 20 pages, the patient only needs to re-consent for the patient transportation portion of the clinical trial when participating in a trial organized by one of Continuum’s sites, explained Nasser.

Securing transportation for patients is an issue for the healthcare industry in general, and that is why ridesharing companies are increasingly getting involved in the healthcare market, in part by partnering with hospitals and insurers to address high rates of missed or delayed doctor’s visits, according to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. In May, the health insurer announced a partnership with Lyft to provide free transportation to certain members. Last September, Lyft’s competitor Uber also began providing patients with non-emergency transportation to a number of hospitals through a partnership with technology startup Circulation.

“Of the sites that are providing patient transportation, mostly in the form of taxi, that’s only provided to elderly and low-income patients,” Nasser said. “It makes sense that they’re providing transportation to those with the most obvious needs, but we know from our data, particularly in the U.S., the majority of clinical trial patients tend to be middle-aged, give-or-take, middle-class individuals.”

 

Some brands thought to shift online ad dollars, creating uncertainty for WebMD

MM&M – This and other changes in the market have created demand for new offerings, like mobile-friendly sites, video, and patient communities.

The news that WebMD is considering a sale or merger and Everyday Health’s new owner plans to divest its less profitable businesses underscores the challenges facing “traditional” health content sites at a time when drugmakers are spending their money elsewhere.

Several factors are at play. Millennials, now at an age when they are actively seeking information about health changes, like parenting and pregnancy, prefer information formats like video or mobile. In addition, healthcare marketers are also increasingly turning to sites like Facebook and other media sources, like patient communities, that rely less on banner ads.

Advertisers, in general, are no longer spending as much banner ads, with Zenith reporting a 3.1% decline in banner-ad spending in 2016.

“Companies like Everyday Health and WebMD have been the biggest beneficiaries of web banner advertising,” said Charles Benaiah, CEO of technology startup Watzan. “As the web banner advertising comes down, they’re going to be disproportionately affected.”

Because, in fact, pharma ad budgets are up — 72% of healthcare marketers reported an increase in their 2017 marketing budgets, according to the MM&M and Guidemark Health’s Healthcare Marketers Trend Report, and spending on DTC ads rose 10.4% to $5.8 billion in 2016, compared to the year before.

Ad spending isn’t down at WebMD, which declined to comment for this story. What is changing, though, is the online locations where companies choose to place ads for consumer-facing healthcare brands, like consumer packaged goods, pharmacy chains, and and OTC drugs. WebMD’s OTC and CPG advertising and sponsorship revenue rose 6%, to $132 million, from 2014 to 2016, but the biopharma and medical device ad and sponsorship revenue jumped 30%, to $428 million, during the same two-year span.

As such, the company’s physician site, Medscape, most likely remains a valuable resource, even as it faces more competition from sites like Doximity, a social network for doctors.

WebMD’s consumer business could also be facing more competition from other consumer media sites, such as The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, said Mark Kelley, an analyst at Citigroup.

“In the realm of digital, WebMD is very much considered a traditional outlet,” he said. “So maybe [brands are] being experimental with social media or other channels on the internet.”

During a call with investors in February, WebMD CEO Steve Zatz cited several reasons for the need for a sale or merger, including drugmakers facing pricing pressure, continued issues around managed care, and challenges in product launches.

“Investors are trying to figure out what the value is between the biopharma side,” Kelley said, “and then the OTC or more consumer-facing side from the advertising business.”

Source: ComScore, February 2017

Healthline, a health content site that owns Medical News Today, and represents Drugs.com and Livestrong, is gaining traction among millennials who are internet-savvy and likely to block online ads altogether, said Healthline CEO David Kopp. There are also re-launched sites like About.com’s Verywell, and sites like CNN Health and Healthgrades, both much smaller than WebMD, that have seen their traffic grow over the last year.

According to February ComScore data, the percentage of millennials who visited Healthline and Medical News Today is 45% and 48%, respectively, while the percentage for WebMD and Everyday Health is 36% and 37%, respectively.

Part of Healthline’s strategy is to partner with influencers such as motivational speaker Gabrielle Bernstein and physician and comedian Dr. Priyanka Wali, Kopp said. In both of those cases, they used Facebook Live to engage with patients on topics such as diet and multiple sclerosis. The company also operates patient communities, like a rheumatoid arthritis community, which has about 30,000 followers.

Another company, Health Union, has condition-specific patient communities on Facebook and platforms for 12 conditions such as Migraine.com and Asthma.net. It plans to launch seven more platforms in the next two years.

“Through these communities that we develop, we’re able to provide clients with patient insights, clinical trial recruitment, anything that involves impacting the patient population,” said Tim Armand, president and co-founder of Health Union.

Additionally, the shift of consumers moving from desktop to mobile is affecting online publishing across all verticals, in part because users more often rely on mobile apps rather than websites, noted Mitchell Reichgut, CEO of advertising agency Jun Group. Among pharma companies, there is more interest in  “value-exchange advertising,” he said.

“Value-exchange, even in an airport [where advertisers show users a video clip in exchange for free wifi], provides those opportunities. If you suffer from hayfever, you can opt in and see something that’s relevant to what you’re going through, and spend 60 or 90 seconds learning about it,” Reichgut said. “They need to know they can tell a longer story.”

 

Regeneron uses VR to humanize retinal disease

Regeneron tried to bridge the patient-physician conversation gap by building a branded app for aflibercept injection Eylea, said Natalie Mancuso, a senior product manager at Regeneron.

MM&M – The drugmaker saw a gap in patient-physician conversation about retinal disease.

The virtual and augmented reality market, forecasted by Digi-Capital to reach $108 billion in revenue by 2021, may be one of the newest to catch the eye of marketers but there has to be a problem to solve first for it to be effective, according to one pharma executive.

It can be tempting to adopt the latest, coolest technology. “But it’s not so cool and fun when nobody uses your asset,” Natalie Mancuso, a senior product manager at Regeneron, said Thursday at MM&M‘s FutureTech Pharma workshop in Philadelphia. Mancuso worked on the launch of a virtual- and augmented-reality application for patients with retinal disease.

The problem Regeneron was trying to solve was a conversation gap between patients with retinal disease and their physicians, a conversation that the company wanted to influence, in order to drive prescriptions of its aflibercept injection Eylea. The drug is approved to treat three eye disorders: neovascular age-related macular degeneration, diabetic macular edema, and macular edema following retinal vein occlusion.

“When these ophthalmologists are diagnosing retinal disease, they’re looking for microscopic fluid in the back of the eye,” said Mancuso. “It’s a very clinical approach to treatment, whereas our patients are saying, ‘Hey, I can’t see anymore.’”

Patients were having a difficult time describing their visual impairment, how it impacted their daily lives, and the fear it fueled, said Mancuso.

“So we built an app, and we essentially gave the smartphone retinal disease,” said Mancuso.

Developed with Intouch Solutions, the In My Eyes app was introduced at the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s convention last year. The drugmaker later rolled out the app to its sales force at a kickoff campaign meeting for Eylea earlier this year. The app is now available on iTunes and Google Play.

The app has two different modes — story mode offers users three set daily scenarios such as having lunch with friends, while live mode allows users to impose symptoms such as black spots and blurriness in real-time.

The app offers both physicians and the sales force a humanized approach to treating retinal disease, and it allows caregivers to better understand what patients are going through, said Mancuso.

“One of our retinal specialists said, ‘I got to walk in their shoes. I never thought about it from that particular aspect,’” said Mancuso.

 

Continuum and Lyft to offer free rides to clinical-trial patients

Patients who are enrolled in clinical trials or who are scheduled to go to screening appointments for clinical trials organized by Continuum’s clients are eligible for free Lyft rides to the clinical-trial study site.

MM&M – Transportation barriers can limit patient involvement in clinical trials.

Continuum Clinical partnered with mobile car service provider Lyft to offer transportation to patients enrolled in clinical trials.

Continuum’s clients include AbbVie, Merck, Sage Therapeutics, Ironwood, and Acadia. Patients who are enrolled in clinical trials or who are scheduled to go to screening appointments for clinical trials organized by Continuum’s clients are eligible for free rides to the clinical-trial study site.

“Studies have shown that of patients considering participating in a clinical trial, up to 50% list transportation as a barrier,” said Nariman Nasser, VP of site optimization at Continuum Clinical. “If they’re relying on family members, their transportation becomes less reliable, and they’re forced to drop out of the trial.”

In addition, family members and caregivers accompanying the patient to the study site will not be charged an additional cost, said Dan Trigub, who manages healthcare partnerships at Lyft.

Eligible patients do not need to own a smartphone to use the service. They can requests rides through a call center or Lyft’s web request service, where they can input their pickup and drop-off information, and a driver will then pick them up.

Continuum and Lyft are also offering Lyft codes that are generated specifically for each patient to input into the Lyft app.

“We can control how the Lyft code will be used,” Trigub said. “We can put restrictions such as the specific address, time of day, or day of the week, so there’s no concern about it being used for personal trips on the weekend.”

With this partnership, Nasser said Continuum hopes to reduce the transportation barrier that patients often face when deciding to stay enrolled in clinical trials.

Initially, Continuum and Lyft are providing transportation to clinical-trial patients with ambulatory conditions, focusing on those patients with Alzheimer’s disease and neurological and chronic conditions, noted Nasser.

Through the Access Mode setting in the Lyft app, patients with accessibility needs can request vehicles designed to accommodate wheelchairs.

The ride-hailing company has the capability to assist patients with walkers, wheelchairs, and guide dogs.

The companies announced the partnership on Tuesday at the annual Scope Summit held in Miami, and initial feedback from conference attendees has been positive, said Nasser. “It was a big ‘aha’ moment of people understanding that leveraging something that’s growing in the consumer market in such a simplistic way is going to be a big differentiator for improving patient recruitment and retention,” she said.

Continuum is also using online screening methods to identify patients before they interact with study sites and is exploring how to identify and connect with patients using real-time data, noted Nasser.

“This allows us to track all the activity of the clinical trial, and we’re able to see that in real-time data,” said Nasser.

Lyft has been involved in the healthcare sector since it announced a partnership in 2016 with the National Medtrans Network to provide 2,500 rides per week to patients with non-emergency medical appointments in New York City. More recently, in December, it announced a partnership with the Ascension health system to provide free or subsidized rides to patients in its network of 141 hospitals and 30 senior care facilities in 24 states and Washington, DC.

Trigub declined to share how much of Lyft’s business is now healthcare-related, but said it’s a growing vertical.

Lyft’s competitor Uber launched UberHealth in 2015 to provide rides to registered nurses delivering flu shots, and it also has partnerships with health system MedStar and startup Circulation to arrange rides for patients.