Oura CMO Says Wearable Health Tracking Moving Beyond Checkups

We're actually building a team, uh, focused on measuring outcomes both from a health perspective as well as from an economic outcomes perspective, which we believe is critical, uh, to, to making this happen. Um, but in the interim, we're working with organizations like Essence, which is a Medicare advantage plan in the Midwest, US. Um, they actually provide an offering to all of their members as a covered benefit. And we're actually measuring right now with them how well this works. We have a program with them where, uh, the Oura ring can detect signs of sleep apnea. That information is sent to the Oura physicians and their eye, where they can then reach out and confirm, um, because we can't diagnose sleep apnea, of course, ourselves. But we send them the data, they can then confirm and then reach out, reach out to that individual to have that, uh, you know, uh, figured out. And then they can get the appropriate treatment so this data is already supporting research and clinical applications, or it's getting close to that? Correct. Yeah, we're already we're already in the midst of all of that. And if you think about it, uh, the symbol of health care, um, for all of our lives has been the stethoscope. Um, this thing that physicians put into their ears. And they can peer into your body by listening to your heart and your lungs. Um, they can do that for maybe 30s a year. Um, but caring about your health shouldn't start when you step into the GP's office. And it shouldn't stop when you leave. And that's why we believe that having a device like Oura ring that can measure 24 over seven, 365 days a year, is the future. So we can peer into your body and figure out what's going on. Uh, even when you're not thinking about it. And as the chief medical officer, is there one thing right now that would be top of your list that you would add to the ring that that isn't currently on it to, to help with ease, to help improve these outcomes and prevention? Yeah. I'm a little bit hesitant, uh, to share anything that we haven't yet released, but I'm super excited about the research and development that our scientists are doing right now. Um, both in additional sensing as well as additional software features. I think a hint of where we're going with this is something like our cardiovascular age feature. And so what this does it actually measures something called pulse wave velocity, which is a measurement of large artery, um, uh, flexibility, uh, stiffness in many ways. And so we can look at that. We can actually estimate the age of your cardiovascular system compared to your peers of the same chronological age. The reason this is so powerful is because if you see that your cardiovascular age is five years, eight years older than your peers, that's a trigger to change your behavior. And we've seen that happen time and time again. So I think the key is not just having the data. It is using that and presenting it in a way that motivates behavior change. And I see people in the ecosystem, the tech ecosystem here in London and elsewhere, and they're wearing their aura rings that it's a certain demographic that you're tapping into. It's not a low price point. There's the subscription and it's young, healthy men and women who are often more affluent than than maybe your average consumer is. Is there a concern that the data that you're getting is not reflective of broader populations? We are extremely proud of the of the diversity in our data set. Um, you might not see that on an anecdotal basis, but we see the number of members that we have that are very young. We see those that are older. I mentioned the medic, um, uh, Medicare population, um, that we have that are using these devices and the usage among our MA or Medicare Advantage population is as good or better in terms of engagement than those that might be younger. And so I think there's sometimes a stereotype about who is going to use these devices. And, uh, we, we believe that because it's so simple to use, it's just a ring you put on your finger. You only have to take it off once a week to charge it. Every time you take a device off is an opportunity to never put it back on again. Um, and because it's so simple to use, we think that actually broadens the appeal for a much larger demographic, and we're always working on ways to make it more accessible.