Pinterest Launches Emotional Wellness Activities
Social media is a part of everyday life and many platforms hope to provide tools for their users health and wellbeing. For example, Facebook created a feature to encourage blood drive donations and incorporated AI for suicide prevention. Now, Pinterest is partnering with Brainstorm, the Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation, Vibrant Emotional Health and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, to introduce wellness activities for users searching for emotional health and related topics. Users can complete activities such as deep-breathing and self compassion exercises when they feel anxious, sad or stressed.
However, the new feature has prompted concern around user privacy. Pinterest has stated the usage of wellness activities is stored anonymously with an undisclosed third-party service. They have also assured that recommendations and ads will not be based on their use. Pinterest's new feature adoption is indicative of social medias' ability to create unique partnerships with healthcare organizations and health tech companies to reach millions of users, especially those who need it most.
Philips Acquires Medumo
Successful digital health companies are the blueprint for newly-founded startups and particular attention is given to effective exit strategies that they utilize. There has recently been a spur in IPOs but mergers and acquisitions continue to be the most popular exit avenue. Following this trend, Philips acquired Medumo, a small Boston-based startup enhancing tracking and triaging of patients. Medumo helps patients prepare for appointments through texts, emails, phone calls and paper mailings.
Phillips is committed to global health. In June, it led a funding round for Babyscripts and announced plans to package Babyscripts’ platforms alongside its other obstetrics-focused products. In March, Phillips acquired health information system Carestream Health and it acquired VitalHealth for its cloud-based population health management technology in 2017. Non-healthcare stakeholders entering the digital health sector to buy innovations is commonplace. This has been a successful exit strategy for many companies and a trend that continues to bolster the health tech ecosystem.