Seen needs to trace your sickness, greater than your health

There’s no scarcity of well being and health trackers — the listing of suppliers is so long as my arm, starting from the mainstream (Apple, Google, Samsung, Fitbit, Withings) to the extra esoteric and specialised (Polar, Suunto, Garmin). The belief underpinning every of these gadgets is that you just’re roughly wholesome, and eager to get in higher form.

However what in case you’re not wholesome? Visible is lending its voice to the healthcare tech revolution — offering a much-needed highlight on the underserved, all whereas providing hope to hundreds of thousands wrestling with persistent power diseases, together with lengthy COVID.

The corporate has emerged as a sport changer in healthcare tech, bringing to the panorama an revolutionary “illness tracker” that’s serving to customers higher handle their bodily discomforts — a departure from the fitness-focused mentality that dominates most present well being wearables out there. The corporate’s software program, which comes within the type of iOS and Android apps, is harnessing the ability of well being know-how and superior information analytics to deal with the wants of extreme instances of power sickness — a market that Harry Leeming, co-founder and CEO at Seen, describes as “wildly underserved.”

Seen didn’t initially got down to turn into a diagnostic software for lengthy COVID or different power diseases. Slightly, its journey started with the straightforward goal of streamlining affected person communication throughout the chaos of the COVID eruption. Nevertheless, Leeming quickly acknowledged the urgency of the lengthy COVID downside and turned to the concept of constructing the “illness tracker.”

“People are eager to move the conversation on from COVID, but the truth is chronic fatigue was a problem long before long COVID hit the headlines. Chronic Lyme Disease, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome — there was already a huge community of patients that were underserved. Long COVID is the strongest ‘why now’ slide — and it has shone a light on all these other conditions,” says Leeming in an interview with TechCrunch.

Attempting it out

As somebody who suffers from lengthy COVID myself, I attempted its resolution out as I used to be at CES in Las Vegas earlier this year. The corporate makes use of a Polar steady coronary heart monitor band to maintain monitor of heartrate all through the day, and heart-rate variability, utilizing that as a proxy for the way properly your physique is doing.

From that, it provides you a “morning check in” score from 1-5. In case your score is terrible, the app suggests to possibly take it a bit simple that day. In the event you’ve received your self a 5, you’re able to run a marathon. Or, no less than, stroll to the espresso store and eat donuts. The app doesn’t choose — nevertheless it does offer you a basic thought of how your day is perhaps wanting from an vitality viewpoint, so you’ll be able to plan accordingly.

On the busy present flooring of CES, getting a thumbs up from the app was useful. And when, on one of many days, it gave me a “erm, maybe chill today,” I selected to disregard it. Sadly, the app was proper, and by 8 p.m. I used to be a husk of a soul. Rattling you, science.

Nonetheless, with the ability to get advance warning of how properly I’m doing on a given day is a strong software — as many different lengthy COVID victims have discovered with the Seen app

What’s subsequent?

“COVID has certainly the strongest ‘why now’ effect. It has shone a light on this massive, overlooked market of chronic conditions,” Leeming mentioned. “We aim to take fitness, wellness and illness into account with our tracker. At first, in November 2022, we launched in a free app that just uses your smartphone data. We’ve had over 45,000 people join the platform, through organic growth. Then we rolled out the premium subscription. Today, we have around 2,000 people that are using that.”

Whereas the applying’s main intent revolves round COVID monitoring, it has turn into clear that it’s having an affect on way over simply these battling the pandemic virus. The corporate suggests that folks with post-concussion syndrome, post-surgery fatigue and most cancers restoration are additionally gaining profit from Seen’s data-centric strategy. The broad enchantment and multifaceted usefulness of the tracker are an encouraging step ahead for individuals who have been marginalized by a “one-size-fits-all” mannequin in conventional healthcare.

Now not a mere threat evaluation software, Seen’s “illness tracker” has developed into a private assistant for well being upkeep and a logo of empowerment for sufferers. Leeming suggests the software remains to be very a lot in its embryonic phases and acknowledges that it solely loosely guides selections for now. However he has excessive hopes that it may facilitate higher outcomes.

In a tech panorama that always calls for extra, Seen trusts customers to take heed to their very own our bodies, merely offering them with the info to make extra knowledgeable selections. It’s a refreshing thought — a tech firm that doesn’t overpromise and underdeliver, however units lifelike expectations for its evolving product. Even at this preliminary stage, it definitely appears that Seen is beginning to illuminate a brand new manner ahead for power sickness victims.