Fitbit Group Health

Summary

Founded in 2007, Fitbit has become widely known as a leading manufacturer of “wearables” – devices and technology worn on the body to track fitness and health characteristics such as steps taken, heart rate, and sleep patterns. As fitness wearables became more popular and as their accuracy was validated for measures like step count and energy expenditure, employers began incorporating devices into their health promotion offerings. One 2013 estimate held that, by 2018, more than 13 million wearable devices would be in use in corporate wellness plans.^[1]

Fitbit Group Health was introduced in 2016 to integrate various offerings that Fitbit had for employers who were offering wellness packages. Fitbit Group Health was also offered to healthcare stakeholders, including insurers, clinicians, weight management specialists, and researchers.^[2]

Fitbit Group Health offers various options for employers, including basic kits for “DIY” wellness solutions and comprehensive packages centered around wearables. It can also be integrated with other major corporate wellness partners, such as Virgin Pulse, Jiff, and Vitality.^[3] These packages use the digital connectivity wearables to coordinate, motivate, and engage employees in wellness initiatives and to track a company’s overall results and progress. Among these offerings are options to host challenges among groups of employees, tools for individuals to keep track of themselves and their teams, and dashboards for administrators to monitor and report on the entire organization.

As of 2017, at least 1,300 companies were using Fitbit as part of their corporate wellness initiatives,^[4] including more than 70 of the Fortune 500 companies.^[5]

Analysis

Fitbit’s offerings to employers reflect the main goals of most workplace health promotion programs: increased productivity and satisfaction, improving employee health, and creating a general culture of wellness in workspaces. Two major characteristics set Fitbit apart. The first is customizability – Fitbit’s offerings are available to employers hoping to expand to an existing workplace wellness program by integrating a wearable, to begin an entirely new and comprehensive workplace health promotion package, or to design an individual initiative involving a wearable. Second, Fitbit Group Health offers powerful data for both individuals and employers to track their progress and improve. Individuals get all of the benefits of a wearable, including fitness tracking and apps for monitoring and logging progress. This data can be used to inform and motivate future health behaviors and shared as a way of creating community, accountability, and competition. Employers get the ability to monitor the overall progress of participants through a dashboard, and in turn use this to inform quality improvement and future changes or additions to workplace health benefits.

There has been some question raised as to the efficacy of wearables – one often-cited study found that a wearable device in combination with a lifestyle intervention did not produce greater weight loss over two years than the lifestyle intervention alone (participants in both groups did see significant weight loss).^[6] However, this study used neither Fitbit’s devices nor its health promotion products. A smaller study, which combined Fitbit wearables with text-message reminders, intended to prompt physical activity found that the intervention did increase physical activity among obese adults.^[7] Fitbit has also published numerous case studies showing positive outcomes from its workplace health offerings.^[8]