Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 29 June 2022 – GluCare.Health, a hybrid digital therapeutics company focused on diabetes, has announced it has become the first provider globally to have met the criteria of value-based practices by fulfilling the International Consortium of Health Outcomes Measurements (ICHOM) certification process.

“GluCare.Health is, at its core, a behavioral change engine.  We deliver this behavior change and our consequent outcomes through a hybridized virtual/physical clinical service, powered by a robust healthcare data and analytic platform” said Ali Hashemi, Co-Founder and Chairman at GluCare.Health.

ICHOM is a not-for-profit founded in 2012 by Professor Michael E. Porter of Harvard Business School, Stefan Larsson, Senior Advisor, Boston Consulting Group, and Martin Ingvar of the Karolinska Institute. ICHOM’s mission is to unlock the potential of value-based health care by defining global Sets of Patient-Centered Outcome Measures and driving adoption and reporting of these measures worldwide to create better value for all stakeholders. As of 2022, ICHOM has produced 40 Sets of Patient-Centered Outcome Measures that have been adopted by hundreds of healthcare organizations across the globe. Dr. Ihsan Almarzooqi, GluCare.Health's Co-Founder and Managing Director first became interested in value-based healthcare after attending a Harvard Business School course by Professor Michael Porter. Inspired by the course, Dr. Almarzooqi began his quest to introduce value-based healthcare in the UAE. 

“At GluCare.Health, we actively and continuously manage our patients while transparently reporting our outcomes - it is how we have proven that our model of care works better than traditional care.  We know, objectively, that patients we manage are better engaged because we provide them with all the necessary tools to engender sustainable behavior change. We see vastly better outcomes under our platform compared to traditional care and, on average, our patients are well-controlled in as little as 90 days with fewer prescribed medications. Outcome reporting has been a core value at GluCare.Health from day 1, and utilizing ICHOM's reporting standards has been critical in showcasing the power of our platform,” added Dr. Almarzooqi.

GluCare.Health has re-invented diabetes care from a first-principles basis, combining the virtual digital therapeutic (DTx) with the physical clinic in a seamless patient experience.  It incorporates an outcome-based approach to delivering healthcare within its hybrid treatment model and started seeing patients in September 2020. By combining in-clinic treatment with Remote Continuous Data Monitoring (RCDM) through wearables, patients are in continuous contact with their care team in the cloud. This team consists of physicians, educators, nurses, dietitians and coaches, and provides real-time support when the patient needs it most, not just during their quarterly visits.

GluCare.Health has remained committed to accountability and transparency in reporting the outcomes of its novel model of care and has embedded the ICHOM Sets from the vast amount of clinical data it captures. At its essence, Glucare.Health’s model is simple - shifting diabetes management away from archaic, fragmented and episodic care to a cutting-edge continuous-care and behavioral-change-based approach that is measured and reported.

GluCare.Health has also advocated shifting current fee-for-service reimbursement to a fee-for-performance mechanism that rewards providers who are transparent and report better outcomes.

“We are delighted that GluCare.Health has become the first recipient of ICHOM's Certification. Their dedication to transparency and outcomes in a condition as prevalent and disproportionately costly as diabetes is commendable.”, said Suzanne Gaunt, ICHOM’s President and CEO.

“Our ambition has always been to remain accountable to patients, payors, and regulators.  To that end, we are delighted to have achieved this recognition from ICHOM.  A core value of GluCare.Health is providing our stakeholders transparency into our model of care through global standards-based reporting. We hope this recognition is a first step in paving the way for increasingly sophisticated performance models to be practiced globally,” concluded Hashemi.