higi partners with Washington Redskins on health-and-wellness effort
CHICAGO — On Tuesday, higi, owner of the largest FDA-cleared, retail-based, self-screening network and consumer engagement platform in North America, announced a new partnership with the Washington Redskins. The partnership offers the football team’s fans the opportunity to enter unique monthly health and fitness challenges through higi health stations and its online platform.
As part of the multi-year partnership, higi will be highly involved in the Redskins’ health-and-wellness platform. Beginning this 2017 season with “Hail to Your Health” challenges, the program will feature exclusive prizes for participants like season tickets, dinner with a Redskins legend and VIP game day experiences. The shared objective for these health and fitness challenges is to help fans engage easily and effectively with their health to improve overall quality of life.
The “Hail to Your Health” program was developed on the principles proven in two recent research studies higi presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in 2015 and 2016, showing that participation in a challenge can help motivate hypertensive patients to reduce ambulatory blood pressure in a statistically significant way. The research demonstrated that gamification through higi’s national network of self-screening stations gave users an accessible, easy and fun way to integrate regular biometric readings and activity into their lifestyle routine.
The habit of tracking biometric data during the challenge also helped keep participants engaged months after the challenge was concluded. The partnership with the Redskins will build on these scientifically proven methods to activate the team’s fan base and help people lower blood pressure and adopt overall healthier lifestyles.
“We know that gamification and enrolling in challenges help people achieve desired outcomes with respect to lifestyle and blood pressure,” higi chief medical officer and principal investigator of the research Dr. Khan Siddiqui said. “Once you make something fun and engaging with social influence, you take the burden out of the equation and people participate enthusiastically with others while getting healthier. Football is the perfect place for this to flourish and help save lives.”
Currently, higi has nearly 11,000 self-screening health stations in the pharmacy area at leading food, drug and mass-market retailers across the country. The health stations provide free biometric screenings and integrate seamlessly with the higi mobile app and web assets. The higi platform also connects with more than 80 health devices, activity trackers and apps to provide an all-in-one personal health and wellness dashboard. More than 41 million people have used higi health stations, which have conducted 228 million biometric screenings, and 5.5 million people have signed up for the higi account that provides a data feed for personal health management.
“This partnership will play a large role in our initiatives to promote health and wellness among our fans,” EVP Terry Bateman said. “higi is highly accessible to our fan base and has the technology necessary to create a cutting-edge platform with the power to educate users through substantial data, which leads to behavior change and lifestyle improvement.