A pioneering healthcare app for Mapmyhealth

Mapmyhealth provides digital therapeutic apps to patients with long-term conditions, so they can self-manage their conditions.

Mapmyhealth services are available by prescription only, and are used by more than 70,000 patients in the UK.

• Today, nearly 4 million people in the UK live with diabetes. This is predicted to reach 5 million by 2025.
• Diabetes costs the NHS more than £10 billion per year (c. 10% of its annual budget).
• Experts have predicted diabetes could bankrupt the NHS within a generation.
• Much of the NHS cost is spent treating complications like kidney failure, strokes and amputations.

The problem

Mapmyhealth had a strong vision for their app, Mapmydiabetes. It wanted to:

• Provide a way for healthcare professionals to communicate, coach and prescribe to their patients
• Have consistent, engaging use of the app by patients
• Display specific, personalised content to each user
• Ensure patients wanted to self-manage their condition
• Get patients to use the app as a part of their daily lives

The solution

In 2013, illumo digital began working on the Mapmydiabetes project.

“It had to be designed in collaboration with patients and healthcare experts using a data-driven approach,” said Iain Brogan, COO at Mapmyhealth. So, after performing user research and testing, we developed the software with these key features:

• Ability for healthcare professionals to prescribe Mapmydiabetes to the patient
• Patient access to educational content – e.g. personalised recipes, exercise plans
• Data sharing between patient and their healthcare professional – e.g. goal setting
• Appointment scheduling and reminders
• High standards of data security and privacy
• Integration with NHS systems, plus APIs for connecting to consumer devices and apps

In addition, we gave strategic consultancy on how Mapmyhealth could take the product to market.

The Outcome

Helastel (now illumo digital) helped launch Mapmydiabetes to great success.

Since then, the app has improved tens of thousands of lives. Both patients and NHS commissioning bodies have embraced the software. Several GPs sent letters of gratitude, explaining how it had improved patient outcomes and alleviated their workloads.

In its first full year of operation:

• Mapmydiabetes became the world’s first app for sharing info on diabetes patient data
• 40% more UK diabetes sufferers are proactively managing their condition
• 100,000+ patients benefit from the software (and rising)

“It was great teamwork. illumo digital rendered our ideas a into robust and intelligently designed software,” said Iain.

The Future

Helastel (now illumo digital) and Mapmyhealth are committed to continuously improving the software, even to this day.

Having proven successful in the UK market, Mapmyhealth wants to expand internationally. This includes to the US, where type 2 diabetes is a monumental public health issue.

In addition, the software engine behind Mapmydiabetes is also being used to develop similar products for other chronic diseases and conditions, such as obesity and cancer.