Sharecare

Last updated
Sharecare, Inc.
Company type Public
Nasdaq:  SHCR
Industry Digital health
FoundedOctober 7, 2010;14 years ago (2010-10-07)
Founders
Headquarters Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Key people
Jeff Arnold (CEO) [1]
Owner
  • Altaris (2024–present)
Number of employees
2,400 [2]
Divisions Enterprise, Provider, Consumer Solutions [3]
Website www.sharecare.com

Sharecare, Inc. is an Atlanta, Georgia-based health and wellness company that provides consumers with personalized health-related information, programs, and resources. It provides personalized information to the site's users based on their responses to the RealAge Test, the company's health risk assessment tool, and offers a clinical decision support tool, AskMD.

Contents

History

Headquartered in Atlanta, Sharecare was founded in 2010 by Jeff Arnold (founder of WebMD) and Dr. Mehmet Oz, in partnership with Remark Media, Harpo Studios, Sony Pictures Television and Discovery Communications. [4] [5] [6]

Sharecare began as an interactive question-and-answer (Q&A) platform about health [7] and then expanded its products and services through internal development and strategic acquisitions of companies including DailyStrength, dotFit, The Little Blue Book, WisePatient, RealAge, PKC Corporation, BACTES Imaging Solutions, QualityHealth, Feingold Technologies, BioLucid and Healthways. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [ excessive citations ]

On October 22, 2024, the firm announced that it had been acquired by Altaris. [13]

Services

Much of its content is contributed by organizations like AARP, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, the National Academy of Sports Medicine, and medical professionals. [14] Questions are also answered by medical centers such as the Cleveland Clinic. [15] The platform allows them to answer questions and engage in conversations about health. [16]

AskMD, launched in December 2013, is a web-based application, (also a mobile application), that collects information about symptoms, provides information about causes, and locates physicians.[ citation needed ] AskMD guides users through a personalized questionnaire that takes into account symptoms and other factors, like medications and known conditions, and matches answers against available clinical research.[ citation needed ] AskMD's clinical knowledge management system was developed through Sharecare's acquisition of PKC Corporation.[ citation needed ] It was named Best Medical App at the 4th Annual Appy Awards, and was named an official 2014 Webby Award honoree in Mobile & Apps: Health & Fitness. [17] [18]

Sharecare expanded into population health in 2016 when the company acquired a division of business from Healthways including its Blue Zones Project.[ clarification needed ] Part of the deal also included the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. [19] In July 2019, a five-year partnership was announced between Sharecare and The Boston University School of Public Health, collaborating on a "Community Well-Being Index" based on analysis of environmental factors affecting patient health. [20] [21] [22]

In February 2020, Sharecare announced the acquisition of Visualize Health, a platform that develops health quality measures. [23]

RealAge

RealAge is a division of Sharecare that provides health information to consumers. It was founded by Michael Roizen, currently the chief wellness officer at The Cleveland Clinic. In the RealAge Test, users typically fill out a questionnaire about their health history, which is then used to generate personalized content, including highly targeted advertisements. Most revenue comes from pharmaceutical companies paying to advertise their drugs to individuals who have taken the website test and become members. [24] [25]

RealAge was owned by Hearst Magazines, which purchased it for an estimated $60 million to $70 million in 2007, when the company had $20 million in revenue. In 2009, the company was profitable, making its money from pharmaceutical companies for which it compiled test results of RealAge members and sending them highly targeted marketing messages by e-mail. On March 8, 2012, Sharecare acquired RealAge for an undisclosed amount. [24]

Criticisms

Concerns have been raised regarding the bias of answers provided on Sharecare.com by “knowledge partners," or paid sponsors. [26] Such knowledge partners include (among others): Colgate-Palmolive; Pfizer; Unilever (Dove skin-care products); health insurer UnitedHealthcare; and Walgreens drug stores. [27]

Dental amalgam

In June 2013, the American Dental Association (ADA) withdrew as a knowledge partner in response to what it considered an irresponsible attack by co-owner Mehmet Oz's "Dr. Oz Show" on the use of dental amalgam. ADA President Dr. Robert A Faiella summed up the group's reaction by stating: "As a science-based organization, we should always welcome inquiry, but we should not be seen as supporting the promotion of misleading information unsupported by the best science." [28]

Delayed reporting of data breach

A data breach that occurred with Sharecare Health Data Services (SHDS) as early as May 2018 was not reported to users until February 2019. No explanation was given for the delayed reporting. [29] HIPAA, the federal law governing healthcare data privacy, requires that data breaches be reported within 60 days. The breach included the personal information of at least 18,416 Blue Shield of California and at least 5,500 AltaMed members. Patients affected were offered 12 months of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services.

See also

Related Research Articles

Personalized marketing, also known as one-to-one marketing or individual marketing, is a marketing strategy by which companies use data analysis and digital technology to show adverts to individuals based on their perceived characteristics and interests. Marketers use methods from data collection, analytics, digital electronics, and digital economics then use technology to analyze it and show personalized ads based on algorithms that attempt to deduce people’s interests.

HowStuffWorks is an American commercial infotainment website founded by professor and author Marshall Brain, to provide its target audience an insight into the way many things work. The site uses various media to explain complex concepts, terminology, and mechanisms—including photographs, diagrams, videos, animations, and articles.

Netvibes is a French company that offers web services.

Google Health encompasses the health and wellbeing initiatives of Google, including Fitbit and a range of other features and integrations. Google Health started in 2008 as an attempt to create a repository of personal health information in order to connect doctors, hospitals and pharmacies directly. The Google Health project was discontinued in 2012, but the Google Health portfolio re-established in 2018 before being redescribed in 2022 as an "effort" rather than a distinct division.

Tivity Health is an administrator of fitness and wellness services. Tivity Health is headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee and has campuses in Franklin, Tennessee and Chandler, Arizona. The company was founded in 1981 as American Healthways and rebranded to Tivity Health in 2017. Tivity Health acquired Nutrisystem Inc., which included the South Beach Diet brand, in March 2019, and sold the nutrition business to Kainos Capital in October 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mehmet Oz</span> American surgeon and TV host (born 1960)

Mehmet Cengiz Öz, also known as Dr. Oz, is an American politician, television presenter, physician, author, professor emeritus of cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia University, and former political candidate.

DailyStrength is a division of Sharecare that serves as a social network centered on support groups, where users provide one another with emotional support by discussing their struggles and successes with each other. The site contains online communities that deal with different medical conditions or life challenges. As of November 4, 2007, DailyStrength has created over 500 support groups focused on issues such as depression, divorce, parenting, and a wide variety of cancers; Furthermore, health blogs, expert answers, treatment, and a non-professional community of support located all over the world.

Michael Fredric Roizen is an American anesthesiologist and internist, an award-winning author, and the chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic. Roizen became famous for developing the RealAge concept and has authored or coauthored five number-one New York Times best sellers.

DrChrono is an American digital health technology company that provides software and billing services on a platform of web apps and cloud-based apps for doctors and patients. The company makes electronic health records (EHR), practice management software, and medical billing software and provides medical revenue cycle management (RCM) services. The company is based in Sunnyvale, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News360</span> Personalized news aggregation app for smartphones, tablets and the web

News360 was a personalized news aggregation app for smartphones, tablets and the web. It attempted to learn a user's interests by analyzing their interaction with news stories on the app and using semantic analysis and natural language processing to create an Interest Graph and construct a unique feed of relevant content for each user. The app claimed an audience of more than 4 million users.

Evergage was a cloud-based software that allowed users to collect, analyze, and respond to user behavior on their websites and web applications in real-time. In 2020, Evergage was acquired by Salesforce and was rebranded as Interaction Studio. The company positions itself as a "real-time personalization and customer data platform (CDP)".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theneeds</span> Online and mobile search engine

Theneeds is a search engine that features content tailored to users' interests, such as articles, news, videos, social posts, and other media.

Lawrence Leonard Weed was an American physician, researcher, educator, entrepreneur and author, who is best known for creating the problem-oriented medical record as well as one of the first electronic health records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Arnold (internet entrepreneur)</span> American Internet entrepreneur

Jeffrey Todd Arnold is an American Internet entrepreneur and executive. He is chairman of Sharecare, a health and wellness engagement platform that provides users with personal health tools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donato Tramuto</span> American businessman

Donato J. Tramuto is an American healthcare executive, global health activist, and author. He is the former CEO of Tivity Health and has held executive positions for i3 and Physicians Interactive. Tramuto is also the founder of The TramutoPorter Foundation and a nonprofit program, Health eVillages, that provides curated medical information to clinicians in remote areas. He previously served as elected Board of Selectmen for the Town of Ogunquit and has authored three books, including The Double Bottom Line: How Compassionate Leaders Captivate Hearts and Deliver Results.

Babylon Health was a digital-first health service provider that combined an artificial intelligence-powered platform with virtual clinical operations for patients. Patients are connected with health care professionals through their web and mobile application.

Psychographic segmentation has been used in marketing research as a form of market segmentation which divides consumers into sub-groups based on shared psychological characteristics, including subconscious or conscious beliefs, motivations, and priorities to explain, and predict consumer behavior. Developed in the 1970s, it applies behavioral and social sciences to explore to understand consumers’ decision-making processes, consumer attitudes, values, personalities, lifestyles, and communication preferences. It complements demographic and socioeconomic segmentation, and enables marketers to target audiences with messaging to market brands, products or services. Some consider lifestyle segmentation to be interchangeable with psychographic segmentation, marketing experts argue that lifestyle relates specifically to overt behaviors while psychographics relate to consumers' cognitive style, which is based on their "patterns of thinking, feeling and perceiving".

Your.MD also known as Healthily, is a digital healthtech company that uses artificial intelligence to provide users with personalised health information via a chatbot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ada Health</span> Health company based in Berlin

Ada Health was founded in 2011, by Dr. Claire Novorol, Professor Martin Hirsch, and Daniel Nathrath.

Acxiom is a Conway, Arkansas-based database marketing company. The company collects, analyzes and sells customer and business information used for targeted advertising campaigns. The company was formed in 2018 when Acxiom Corporation spun off its Acxiom Marketing Services (AMS) division to global advertising network Interpublic Group of Companies.

References

  1. ↑ Staff. "Sharecare leadership". Sharecare corporate site. Retrieved January 26, 2021.
  2. ↑ "Sharecare Company Profile". Craft. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
  3. ↑ "Form 425 (2021)". www.sec.gov.
  4. ↑ "Quarterly Report on Remark Holdings". SEC. 2019-11-12. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  5. ↑ Elliott, Stuart (2010-10-06). "Web Site to Offer Health Advice, Some of It From Marketers". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-04-02.
  6. ↑ "Dr. Mehmet Oz and Internet Entrepreneur, Jeff Arnold, Announce Sharecare Inc., a Web 3.0 Platform, Organizing and Answering the Questions of Health". Bloomberg. November 2, 2009. Retrieved 2011-04-02.
  7. ↑ "Sharecare aims to be humble host for health apps". MobiHealthNews. 2010-10-21. Retrieved 2011-04-02.
  8. ↑ "Sharecare Announces $14 Million Growth Equity Financing Led by Galen Partners, the Acquisition of The Little Blue Book Physician Reference and Jeff Arnold to be CEO". Sharecare. 2012-01-17.
  9. ↑ "Sharecare Announces the Acquisition of RealAge". Sharecare. 2012-03-12.
  10. ↑ "Sharecare Announces the Acquisition of PKC Corporation". Sharecare. 2012-06-18.
  11. ↑ "Sharecare Announces Acquisition of BACTES". Sharecare. 2013-07-01.
  12. ↑ "Wellness platform Sharecare to buy health business from Healthways". Reuters. 2016-07-27.
  13. ↑ "Altaris completes acquisition of Sharecare". Sharecare. Retrieved 2024-11-05.
  14. ↑ Elliott, Stuart (2010-10-06). "Web Site to Offer Health Advice, Some of It From Marketers". ’’The New York Times’’.
  15. ↑ Moukheiber, Zina (2010-11-16). "Names You Need To Know In 2011: Sharecare". Forbes.
  16. ↑ "Dr. Mehmet Oz and Jeff Arnold launch Sharecare.com, where experts share their knowledge with consumers". Health in 30. 2010-10-08. Retrieved 2011-03-28.
  17. ↑ "Sharecare's AskMD Wins Appy Award for Best Medical App". VentureBeat. 2014-05-23.
  18. ↑ "Mobile health apps from EHR to diabetes picked as Webby award honorees". MedCityNews. 2014-04-18.
  19. ↑ Fletcher, Holly (July 27, 2016). "Healthways to sell division, brand to Sharecare in major corporate shake-up". Tennessean. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
  20. ↑ Kent, Jessica (July 16, 2019). "New Community Index Will Mine Social Determinants of Health Data". Health IT Analytics. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  21. ↑ Gooch, Kelly (September 3, 2020). "50 states ranked from healthiest to unhealthiest". Becker's Hospital Review. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  22. ↑ Morse, Susan (September 2, 2019). "Boston University SPH and Sharecare launch well-being index looking at impact of environment on health". Healthcare Finance. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  23. ↑ Lee, Chanel (2020-02-25). "Sharecare Acquires Tennessee-Based Healthcare Company Visualize Health". Hypepotamus. Retrieved 2020-03-03.
  24. 1 2 Clifford, Stephanie (25 March 2009). "Online Age Quiz Is a Window for Drug Makers". The New York Times . Retrieved 26 March 2009.
  25. ↑ "What Happened to Realage?". Medical Alert Buyers Guide. 3 April 2019. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  26. ↑ Burkitt, Laurie (2009-11-19). "WebMD Founder Matches Marketers With Consumers Who Have Health Concerns". Forbes.
  27. ↑ Elliott, Stuart (2010-10-06). "Web Site to Offer Health Advice, Some of It From Marketers". The New York Times.
  28. ↑ Soderland, Kelly (2013-06-10). "ADA and Sharecare part ways". ADA News.
  29. ↑ Garrity, Mackenzie (April 29, 2019). "AltaMed alerts 5,500 patients of data breach". Becker Hospital Review.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.