World-first: Personal Health Pathways by Discovery Health takes 2.1 million adult medical scheme members on a hyper-personalised health journey powered by predictive AI tech

[disclaimer] This press statement is issued by Discovery Health (Pty) Ltd, registration number 1997/013480/07, an authorised financial services provider and accredited administrator of medical schemes on behalf of Discovery Health Medical Scheme, registration number 1125, which it administers.

Harnessing the power of advanced, evidence-based data science and artificial intelligence (AI), Discovery Health has introduced Personal Health Pathways - a groundbreaking innovation that delivers real-time, personalised health recommendations. Built on one of the world’s largest clinical and behavioural datasets, this pioneering platform provides personalised health guidance to 2.1 million adult members of the Discovery Health Medical Scheme. Through Personal Health Pathways, each member is recognised as a completely unique individual with distinct health needs. Hence, no two members’ pathways are alike. Each member’s pathway is uniquely developed to enhance individual health outcomes, dynamically adapting to new health data and information in real time. By providing precise, personalised health recommendations and rewarding members for taking proactive health actions, Discovery Health is transforming the future of healthcare - making it smarter, more intuitive, and deeply personal.

3 March 2025, Johannesburg, South Africa – Discovery Health has introduced Personal Health Pathways, a world-first, patented AI-powered platform designed to provide personalised health recommendations to 2.1 million adult members of the Discovery Health Medical Scheme. This cutting-edge innovation tailors health and lifestyle actions to each individual’s unique needs, offering precise, intuitive, and data-driven guidance, while rewarding members for completing targeted health actions.

Dr Ron Whelan, CEO of Discovery Health, explains: "Discovery Health’s core purpose has always been to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. Personal Health Pathways is a sophisticated, data-driven realisation of this vision. By harnessing AI, predictive analytics, and behavioural science, we are advancing personalised, clinically appropriate, preventive healthcare with unprecedented precision and at scale."

Accessible via the Discovery Health app, the platform helps members and their healthcare practitioners navigate the healthcare system with precise and personalised healthcare recommendations, improving both immediate and long-term health outcomes for each member. Each pathway is tailored to the member’s specific health status, risk profile, and engagement patterns, dynamically adjusting as new health data become available.

"Just as everyday GPS navigation apps find the fastest route by factoring in real-time data and traffic patterns, Personal Health Pathways dynamically maps the optimal path to better health,” says Whelan. Based on various data informing the member’s current and future projected health status, the platform recommends actions with the greatest potential to improve health outcomes. Also, as new data and information on each person’s health status becomes available, the platform uses AI to adapt pathways and recommendations in real-time, providing stronger and more precise recommendations that build healthy habits over time."

With this AI-driven approach, Discovery Health continues to lead the way in personalised, proactive healthcare, empowering members to take control of their wellbeing with confidence and precision.

Unleashing precision: Predictive AI delivers the right advice at the right time, based on analysis of world-leading health data set

Advances in AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics are transforming industries worldwide, with healthcare at the forefront of this evolution. These technologies are enabling unprecedented levels of precision and personalisation, reshaping how health interventions are designed and delivered.

With a global presence spanning 40 million clients across 40 countries, Discovery has one of the world's most comprehensive and unique clinical, lifestyle, and behavioural datasets. This includes more than 50 million life years of health claims and clinical data, alongside nearly 30 million life years of exercise and lifestyle data gathered through Vitality in South Africa.

Whelan adds, "By applying advanced machine learning to this extensive dataset, we are uncovering new patterns and insights that enable better health outcomes. From there, Discovery Health’s sophisticated data science and clinical capabilities allow us to accurately measure the direct impact of specific health and lifestyle interventions on long-term health and wellbeing."

The AI-powered platform behind Personal Health Pathways processes more than 33 terabytes of data, with an additional 500 gigabytes ingested daily, ensuring that each member’s health recommendations remain current and relevant. To illustrate the platform’s scale, there are over seven million possible pathways for completing 12 health actions. When expanded to 24 actions, the number of possible pathways reaches into the billions.

Each Personal Health Pathways cycle provides up to two clinical actions, one weekly exercise goal, personalised rewards and access to the all-new Personal Health Fund through the Discovery Health Medical Scheme

Medical scheme members can seamlessly activate their Personal Health Pathways via the Discovery Health app - and, from May 2025, through WhatsApp too - ensuring convenient access to personalised healthcare navigation.

This innovative platform simplifies the healthcare journey by providing each member with two personalised clinical actions (where applicable) and a tailored weekly physical activity goal. Designed to be relevant, actionable, and easy to follow, these recommendations enable members to take timely and meaningful steps toward better health. Members can choose to complete or defer actions, with the next most appropriate health action soon available, based on their evolving needs.

Clinical actions are prioritised based on their health impact and on the likelihood that a member will complete them. While many clinical interventions offer substantial benefits, their true value is only realised when completed.

Examples of the fully personalised clinical actions Personal Health Pathways delivers:

• A healthy 42-year-old woman may be encouraged to schedule a Health Check, complete a mental wellbeing assessment, go for a dental check-up, get a mammogram or Pap smear, nominate a primary care GP, complete a Vitality Age Assessment, or receive a flu vaccine.
• A 45-year-old man with elevated cholesterol and blood pressure may be guided to visit his GP for a check-up, collect prescribed medicine, monitor blood pressure or cholesterol levels, or go for prostate or colon cancer screening.
• A 65-year-old man with diabetes may be prompted to schedule an HbA1c test, collect medicine, undergo foot and retinal screenings, complete a prostate cancer test, or take a mental wellbeing assessment.

Weekly physical activity goals are customised to each member’s individual physical activity status and capabilities, allowing members to progress at their own pace. Physical activity goals can be met through heart-rate workouts, parkruns, or achieving step targets, ensuring an engaging and accessible approach to maintaining an active lifestyle.

Rich, personalised rewards drive engagement; and up to R500 into new Personal Health Fund with each action completed

As they complete each action recommended in their Personal Health Pathway, Discovery Health Medical Scheme members earn a range of valuable rewards through Discovery Health. Those Scheme members who are also Vitality clients, earn personalised rewards through Personal Health Pathways in addition to their Vitality rewards. Rewards for all members include shopping vouchers, Discovery Miles, and instant rewards. There is extensive personalisation at this level too. Discovery Health has tailored rewards based on each individual’s likelihood to complete an action and also on how much that action will impact their health.

Alongside Personal Health Pathways, Discovery Health Medical Scheme has introduced the Personal Health Fund, a benefit that allows members to accumulate up to R10 000 worth of risk funded benefits by completing the actions in their Personal Health Pathway. The funds that are accumulated in the Personal Health Fund can be used for day-to-day medical expenses, including GP and specialist consultations, medicine, radiology, and pathology.

“Since launching Personal Health Pathways (1 January to 28 February 2025) we have recorded nearly 120 000 Scheme members activating their Pathways. Through Discovery Health, these members have collectively earned more than R8 million in rewards for completing the health actions recommended to them,” says Whelan.

Watch Dr Ron Whelan and Dr Sivuyile Madikana explore their Personal Health Pathways and the way in which the platform delivers truly precise and personalised guidance and rewards.

The bigger picture: Transforming health through the right habits and the data-driven case for positive change

A significant body of evidence attests to the ways in which positive behaviour change directly improves both lifespan and years lived in good health.

For example, research by Vitality (with the London School of Economics, tracking 500,000 participants over five years) found that increasing physical activity from low to moderate or high levels, lowered mortality risk by 38–58% among individuals aged 45–65. Exercise is more protective as we age: Among individuals over 65, increased physical activity reduced the risk of death by 52–59%.

The lifelong benefits of sustained healthy habits extend to managing disease. For people who live with chronic illness, taking the right actions to manage a chronic condition (such as adherence to medicine, visiting a GP, and having relevant tests done) can be transformative and drive cost savings. Analysis of Discovery Health Medical Scheme data collected from 2019 to 2023 (for approximately 65,000 members living with diabetes) showed that going from a poor to a strong clinical habit resulted in a 13% relative reduction in in-hospital costs and 16% relative reduction in the risk of death.

Long-term positive health results from consistent, positive behaviour where health-conscious choices become sustained healthy habits. Positive health habits can be formed relatively quickly, taking most people about nine or ten weeks. Also strong positive habits last twice as long as strong negative ones. That’s what research spanning 10 years and looking at one million Vitality members found.

Optimising health outcomes: The role of data, AI, and behavioural science

“We’re now able to take the power of positive behaviour change and lasting healthy habits to the next level. By combining access to rich data sets with behavioural economics, advanced predictive technologies, AI, and data science modelling, we open the door to highly specific, targeted and personalised health interventions - all tailored for greatest impact on the individual,” adds Whelan. “Customising health communication, advice and rewards increases engagement in health-seeking behaviour, and this is evident across healthcare contexts.”

For example, precision medicine can result in a 30% reduction in adverse drug reactions, and a 35% decrease in healthcare costs by eliminating variations in care. Personalised patient communication can increase participation in care programmes from 24% to as high as 76%. Also, healthcare organisations implementing personalisation have reported a 5-10% reduction in administrative costs and hospital readmissions, as well as shorter hospital stays.

Whelan adds, “Our research also shows that investing in personalised healthcare delivers significant return on investment - for every $1 invested in rewards that incentivise personalised behaviour change, between $2.50 and $9.70 of value is generated, depending on the habit formed.”

“All of these insights and more have been incorporated into the Personal Health Pathways build. For the first time, we are truly able to understand individual health needs, predict how likely people are to engage, and tailor both a personalised healthcare journey and communication, creating better long-term health outcomes while lowering healthcare costs.”

Personal Health Pathways goes beyond innovation; it’s a healthcare revolution

“We are entering a new era where the demand for personalised care aligns with the data and technology required to enable it. Personal Health Pathways represents a transformational shift in healthcare - improving outcomes, reducing disease burden, lowering costs, and ultimately, extending lives.”

Personal Health Pathways is available to all adult members of Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS) as a disease prevention and management programme. Participation in Personal Health Pathways is voluntary and members can opt out at any time , but non-participation may impact access to other DHMS benefits i.e. the Personal Health Fund. Recommended health actions are funded based on the member’s available plan benefits in terms of the Scheme Rules. Funding information is shown per action.

Additional resources

For deeper insight into the science behind Personal Health Pathways access our White Paper: ‘Optimising shared-value through Personal Health Pathways: A behavioural science framework for members and insurers’

Also read ‘How investing in healthy habits can deliver a powerful return for society’ by Discovery Group Chief Executive, Adrian Gore, published in January 2025 by the World Economic Forum.

Access the dedicated Personal Health Pathways web portal.