The healthcare startup Forward aims to disrupt the classic medical practice model — but will it succeed?
With so much tech-driven innovation going on in healthcare these days, it’s easy for companies purporting they’re going to “change the face of medicine forever” to be met with a healthy degree of skepticism; however, one startup may actually have some bite behind its bark.
Last week, former Google Alphabet executive Adrian Aoun’s latest venture, Forward, officially opened the doors of its first location in downtown San Francisco. The practice, which in many ways looks more like an Apple Store than a traditional doctor’s office, has six exam rooms, interactive displays, and body scanners that collect patient data in real-time via wearable body sensors.
Whether or not the idea takes off remains to be seen, but a number of major executives are already placing major bets on its success — Forward’s list of investors includes Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Uber co-founder Garrett Camp, and Oscar co-founder Joshua Kushner, to name a few.
According to Forbes, as soon as patients, or “members” as Forward calls them, walk through the door, they’re checked in by a greeter with an iPad. They’re then directed to a one-of-a-kind full-body scanner that uses wearable sensors to register data, which is then fed through advanced AI algorithms designed to help physicians better detect symptoms. New members undergo additional screenings, including blood and genetic testing, in order to establish a baseline and paint a more comprehensive picture of their health over time.
Members and doctors then view and manipulate the data on a giant touchscreen in the exam room, which is used to improve the overall quality and accuracy of diagnoses and treatment plans. What’s more, all Forward members receive a connected wearable device, which transmits vitals and other health data to physicians in real-time, anytime, anywhere.
Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Forward is its pricing model. Taking a page out of Netflix’s book, members pay a monthly fee ($149) for unlimited access to a long list of Forward’s services: baseline screening, doctor’s visits, 24/7 communication with physicians and nurses via email, remote monitoring, and even some medications. Of course, patients will still need insurance to cover hospitalizations, surgeries, and specialist care, but for many, this kind of model represents a big step in the right direction. What’s more, Aoun says that 15% of its memberships thus far are free or subsidized for patients in underserved communities.
For Aoun, the primary goal is to leverage technology in order to provide not only improved service, but also higher quality care with a more affordable price tag attached. "We're building a platform so doctors can touch more and more lives," Aoun explains. "The marginal cost of all this technology is not that high," he adds. "It's less than the doctor’s time." He points out that “The things that kill us are not the sore throats and rashes, but rather chronic conditions.” At Forward, the emphasis is on prevention and wellness, not reactive care.
Forward is only the latest development in an ongoing wave of healthcare upstarts and tech innovation that’s currently rocking the industry. Today’s patients are using the internet to educate themselves and are taking a more active role in their health and well-being than ever before. As a result, they’re looking for increased transparency, communication, and personalization from healthcare providers. The increasingly widespread adoption of wearables, mHealth, telehealth, and flexible pricing models offers clear evidence of this shift — in other words, consumers are no longer willing to be preached to from on high.
We’ll see if Forward — along other “insurance alternative” upstarts like One Medical, Oscar Health, and SingleCare — will be able to deliver on its promise to deliver higher quality care at a lower cost to the consumer while remaining profitable. But when you combine the ACA’s imminent repeal with the cost-saving capabilities of the IoT and other data-driven technologies, one thing is crystal clear: it seems like they got the timing spot-on.