Fitness and Nutrition Awards 2020

GHP / 2020 Fitness and Nutrition Awards 23 , Best Emerging Telemedicine Company - UK Established in 2014, Vala Health offer online doctor appointments for the entire family. Following the firm’s well-deserved success in the Fitness &Nutrition Awards 2020, we caught up with CEO Pete Trainor to find out more. VALA gives you, or your company instant access to a specialist team of qualified care professionals who evaluate, diagnose, and treat you at a distance. It’s like having your own team of doctors, on-demand, and never having to wait for an appointment, or sit in a waiting room to see your GP ever again. To begin, Pete gives us a brief overview of the firm and offers more insight into some of the services it provides. “Vala allows our members to see a qualified and licensed UK-based GP without leaving home, via our secure video consultations platform. Whilst practicing integrated and functional medicine, we offer a collaborative range of clinicians (GPs, Counsellors, Dieticians and Physiotherapists) who all work together on each case. Typically, our service runs seven days a week, and because we’re CQC, and GMC regulated we can offer prescriptions, referral letters and sick notes which are sent straight to your pharmacy or inbox.” Competing in the healthcare industry can be a daunting prospect for some, however through its commitment to innovation, Vala Health has managed to stay at the forefront of its field, as Pete explains. “Even though we’re online, we pride ourselves in treating every member as a human, and not a patient. Employing a range of qualified professionals, we retrain them to think in the Vala way. Encouraging them to think more strategically about healthcare and long-term outcomes for our members. However, our platform uses salutogenic data and with an AI layer between patient and clinician, we are able to identify the potential causes of a medical problem, rather than just treat the condition. This is important for us because we don’t want to codify the traditional GP clinic, we want to empower our members to take control over their lifestyle and their health outcomes. “Unlike Push Doctor, Doctor Care Anywhere, and Babylon, we give each member unlimited 30-minute appointments a month, and cover the whole family. Through a conversational approach and salutogenic data, we focus on the factors that support human health and wellbeing, rather than on factors that cause disease (pathogenesis). Whereas our competitors focus on the disease side of the continuum, we focus on the overall bigger picture.” Despite the outbreak of COVID- 19 Vala Health has prospered during these uncertain times, largely due to its online presence as Pete informs us. “Because of the Covid-19 crisis we saw a huge national increase in people turning to online health services. Moreover, our service saw a 5X increase in members, appointments, data-generated, Sep20179 Vala Health and subsequently revenues in the first four weeks of the lockdown from March 20th. With there being a huge gulf between people who could afford private online services, and people who were still waiting for their normal NHS GP appointment, we used our data-driven marketing to target the most at need and vulnerable to offer them same- day, free appointments with our team to help take some strain off the NHS.” Finally, Pete comments on some of the firm’s future plans as we look ahead to 2021 and beyond. “With the backing of new investors, 2021 will see us fuel our growth into new markets, but also launch a series of new tools for clinicians, which we hope will empower our audience of medical practitioners to learn and grow. Recently, we have just teamed up with a major insurance provider to bring our unlimited healthcare proposition to their customers, and we’re also launching a new epigenetics product with a company called Muhdo that will offer our members help before they know they need it. “Moving forward, we’ll be launching an App based version of Vala in the next six months. Additionally, we’ll be rolling out several key updates to our Salutogenic layer to help it continuously learn (ethically) from more conversations.” Company: Vala Health Contact: Pete Trainor Web: www.valahealth.com