Digital health is an enormous category that can include a broad scope of services such as mobile health, wearable devices, telehealth and telemedicine, and personalized medicine. With no signs of slowing, digital health revenue is projected to reach over 193 billion in 2024. At-home diagnostics programs can support digital health companies through improved patient relations and complete remote care flows. While at-home diagnostics programs are difficult to build from the ground up, many organizations offer backend services to support all aspects of remote patient testing for digital health companies. 

What are the benefits of at-home diagnostics for digital health companies? 

At-home diagnostics can help digital health companies support a sales funnel to offer specialized health and wellness products, improve patient retention, break down barriers to care, and elevate care quality. 

• Convenience: At-home diagnostics allow patients to perform tests and monitor their health without the need to visit a healthcare facility. This convenience is particularly beneficial for patients with mobility issues, busy schedules, or those living in remote areas.
• Cost-Effective: At-home diagnostics can reduce healthcare costs by minimizing the need for frequent hospital or clinic visits. It can also lead to early identification and prevention of health issues, potentially lowering overall healthcare expenses for patients and insurance.
• Patient Empowerment: Patients can actively participate in healthcare by regularly monitoring their health metrics at home. This empowers patients to take charge of their well-being, make informed decisions, and engage in preventive measures.
• Privacy and Comfort: Performing diagnostics at home provides a more private and comfortable environment compared to clinical settings. This can lead to more accurate results, especially for tests that may be affected by stress or anxiety.
• Reduced Exposure to Infections: During pandemics or when infectious diseases are prevalent, at-home diagnostics help reduce the risk of exposure to pathogens by minimizing visits to healthcare facilities.
• Accessibility: At-home diagnostics can improve access to healthcare, particularly for patients who may face barriers such as transportation challenges, limited mobility, or living in underserved areas.
• Customization: Digital health platforms often provide personalized insights based on individual health data, allowing for tailored recommendations and interventions—or specific wellness products.

In addition to these benefits, below are examples of digital health verticals that use at-home diagnostics to maintain patients and meet business objectives. 

1. Teledermatology Services and Skincare

Since dermatology is a visually-dependent medical field, at-home diagnostics and remote supervision can provide support for medical conditions like acne, skin cancer, and allergic reactions. Store and forward telemedicine allows a patient to submit a photograph or video of his/her/their concern for review and diagnosis. Alternatively, video conferencing connects patients and physicians to review skin, hair, and nail concerns in real time. 

Learn more about home diagnostics for teledermatology on our blog. 

Incorporating at-home diagnostics and other elements of teledermatology allows digital health companies to offer tailored products. Apostrophe offers prescription acne treatment online, and uses dried blood spot cards to perform routine accutane lab work (generic: isotretinoin) for long-term medication adherence. Digital health companies can hire dermatologists or providers of record to approve isotretinoin blood tests. Skincare brands already ship at-home saliva self-tests to patients seeking skincare and supplement recommendations. 

2. At-Home PrEP Maintenance 

‍PrEP is a once-daily pill that is 99% effective at preventing HIV. Though it is often prescribed for men who have sex with men, heterosexual people can also benefit from PrEP, especially trans women, who are at greater risk for contracting the virus, and cis women trying to conceive with an unknown status or HIV positive partner. 

Digital health brands like Mistr not only offer PrEP prescriptions online, but also use at-home diagnostic testing to ensure patient access to medication adherence services. Digital health companies can ship a home creatinine urine test every six months to assess kidney function, as well as dried blood spot card testing for HIV every quarter. While most insurance plans cover PrEP, many of these digital health companies can connect patients without insurance to assistance programs that keep PrEP free. 

3. Fertility Home Test Services

Some digital health companies onboard fertility home testing services with laboratory developed tests, which can be resulted from patient kit samples. Patients submit dried blood spot cards, which technicians use to result anti-mullerian hormone levels, as well as FSH (follicle stimulating hormone), and E2 (estradiol). This allows remote providers to guide patients through fertility recommendations and solutions. 

While both men and women produce anti-mullerian hormones, this test is usually conducted to measure fertility in people assigned female at birth. AMH levels correspond to the number of eggs a patient has in his/her/their ovarian reserve. FSH is made in the pituitary gland, and stimulates the growth of eggs in the ovaries. In people assigned male at birth, FHS controls the production of sperm. E2 tests measure estradiol, the form of estrogen made primarily by the ovaries. Physicians test estradiol to monitor hormone levels in blood during ART (assisted reproductive technology). 

Chat with Ash about launching fertility home test services in a matter of weeks. 

4. Home Allergy Test Kits 

‍Allergy test kits are a popular type of at-home diagnostic that measures environmental and food based allergies. This diagnostic market is expected to reach $7.5 billion in 2026, with some experts arguing that the rise of common allergies—and the need for allergy testing—correlates with increased pollution. As with many diagnostic verticals, greater telehealth usage during the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to the newfound popularity of remote allergy testing. 

Some digital health companies sell allergy test kits as a direct to consumer product. However, digital health companies can also provide allergy test kits as part of an initiative to market specialized health and wellness products. Allergy Butler, for example, is a virtual allergist that uses at-home diagnostic testing to evaluate allergies in patients and prescribe allergy immunotherapy via toothpaste or allergy drops. 

5. STI and Sexual Health Testing

‍Self testing for HIV and other STIs with at-home diagnostics is popular with public health entities as an alternative to point of care tests like Oraquick, which do not connect patients to care. Results with point of care tests are also more likely to be influenced by human error than at-home diagnostic lab tests. 

Some digital health companies offer STI self-collection kits as a direct to consumer product for specific demographics—queer people, Gen Z, etc. The Ash Wellness platform allows digital health companies to approve tests and connect patients with physicians to prescribe ongoing care as necessary. Ash Wellness also provides fourth gen HIV tests, which can detect an infection earlier and with more accuracy. We offer 3-site gonorrhea and chlamydia tests, which let patients swab for three potential STI infections in the anus, mouth, and genitals. 

‍Chat with us to switch on at-home diagnostic testing for your digital health company. 

At-home diagnostics through Ash Wellness for digital health companies

The Ash Wellness platform provides all the backend support for digital health companies to launch at-home diagnostic testing. We take care of kitting and sourcing for white-label test kits and provide optional notification reminders to guide patients through a complete healthcare flow. Our clients can choose from 150+ types of diagnostics screened via our network of CLIA/CAP certified labs across the country. We guarantee physician of record services to approve at-home test kits, and our secure lap API ensures shorter processing speeds with up-to-date technology infrastructure.