In the past decade, digital solutions have emerged to help patients manage chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma, which affect 147 million adults in the United States alone.

Using cognitive, behavioural and psychological methods, these solutions have gained momentum in recent years, buoyed by technological advances and compelling medico-economic evidence that has driven payers to extend coverage. This trend has led to the emergence of successful companies such as Livongo, Omada Health and Big Health.

Digital adoption has now spread to mental health care, especially in relation to sleep. Poor sleep is one of the most common health problems, leading to increased healthcare costs and lost productivity across the world. Evidence of behavioural solutions for sleep problems indicates that annual savings of up to USD1,000 in healthcare costs per patient are possible, which should lead to strong adoption by payers who are early adopters of innovative solutions for driving healthcare costs down.

Finally, we believe that digital solutions will improve our understanding of sleep, which remains one of the “black boxes” of biology. The new generation of accurate and reliable sleep-monitoring wearables will contribute to a better understanding of sleep by enabling big data analysis, and will have potential applications in the early diagnosis of cognitive disorders, treatments and remote monitoring at large scale.

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