The role of lifestyle changes and the promise of a preventive healthcare model

Traditional healthcare models have focused on acute problems and the treatment of symptoms once patients have moved into a disease state. As global healthcare spending rises unsustainably, healthcare systems increasingly need to look at ways to prevent healthcare problems before they arise. These new systems require innovative business models that focus on encouraging positive lifestyle changes which unfortunately can often be difficult to monetise. A large percentage of healthcare problems and huge amount of healthcare spending is necessary as a result of reactive care for diseases which result from changes to the modern lifestyle. Healthcare systems face three major challenges in trying to influence patients to make proactive changes to their lifestyles: financial, private sector incentives, and metrics. A new Swedish company, healthintegrator, provides us with a lot of hope that these three challenges can be solved and that lifestyle changes can be encouraged in order to shift healthcare models into a more preventive mode. Making use of both a unique health impact bond and a digital marketplace, early signs are that healthintegrator has the power to shift healthcare away from reactive care, free up large amounts of healthcare resources, and most importantly illicit positive behavioural change which puts patients' health back in their own hands.

In this report we seek to outline the impact lifestyle has on health outcomes, how this is linked to preventive care, and the challenges of moving to a preventive care model. We then investigate the potential role of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) and how the Swedish startup healthintegrator helps people to improve health and prevent lifestyle-related diseases such as T2D and cardiovascular disease with a method clinically validated in a study conducted at the prestigious Karolinska Institute of Stockholm.

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The role of lifestyle changes and the promise of a preventive healthcare model