AT&T announced the debut of ForHealth, a free wellness and fitness platform that it has developed with Tictrac to engage people in their health and well-being.
The platform aggregates data from different apps and devices and provides users with actionable personal insights and correlations to improve their health.
"As companies continue to develop a variety of wellness and fitness applications, wearables and devices, we see an opportunity for helping customers make sense of their data," Stephen Burger, an AT&T area vice president told eWEEK. "The bottom line is that consumers are more and more interested in self-managing their wellness. Technology obviously plays a key role here."
For example, the ForHealth platform can analyze sleep and exercise patterns and tell the user if they should run farther on days they’ve slept more than six hours.
"We created ForHealth – a free wellness and fitness platform – to help engage people in their health and wellbeing. We expect that the app will be available sometime in the second quarter of 2015," Burger said. "What good is all of that data if you can’t make sense of it? We expect continued growth in health-based applications, and empowering users to manage their own data will help accelerate that trend."
Users can also opt into content streams, programs, challenges and wellness services to further customize their experience on the platform.
"Customers have choices about how their information is collected and used, both by AT&T and other companies," Burger said. "That includes having the option to participate in certain programs, setting privacy preferences and unsubscribing from certain kinds of emails or letters."
AT&T and Royal Philips also announced that AT&T will be the connectivity provider for Philips GoSafe, Philips’ mobile medical alert service.
GoSafe was designed to help provide peace of mind to seniors at home or on the go, and the AT&T network helps power GoSafe and connects seniors with Philips’ round-the-clock, U.S-based emergency call response center.
Featuring six location technologies, the GoSafe platform allows call center associates to locate seniors in need of assistance even in areas where GPS may not be available, such as indoors or in a parking garage.
"As the mHealth industry continues to grow, a trend customers will start to see is self-management. Customers will have more and more opportunities to take their fitness and wellness into their own hands – whether it is with devices, wearables or apps," Burger explained. "As the mHealth market grows and consumers are empowered to take health and wellness into their own hands, technology is going to be a huge player in that.”
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