AI app launched to improve multimorbidity patient care

A project involving an app from digital health coaching service Holly Health has improved digital self-management for people living with or at risk of multimorbidity.

Around one in three adults in the UK live with multimorbidity, which is the presence of two or more long-term health condition, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), and 34% of adults with multimorbidity have both physical and mental conditions.

To address these challenges, Holly Health partnered with Loughborough University and Modality Partnership to complete an Innovate UK-funded 18-month project, which ran from 1 May 2024 until 31 October 2025, focused on advancing digital self-management for people living with or at risk of multimorbidity.

The collaboration brought together Holly Health’s experience in scalable digital behaviour change, Loughborough University’s behavioural science and data modelling expertise, and Modality Partnership’s large patient reach in NHS primary and community care settings.

Grace Gimson, chief executive and co-founder of Holly Health, said: “This is one of our most exciting advancements to date.

“At a time when a huge amount of focus is on Large Language Model AI developments in healthcare, this project has enabled us to innovate in a unique direction, by hyper personalising the coaching nudges we deliver.

“We can’t wait to deploy this with wider NHS patient cohorts, to provide the compassionate and tailored lifestyle health support that people need more of.”

The project developed, tested, refined and deployed a reinforcement learning machine learning (ML) system capable of continuously adapting to users’ changing needs, an approach rarely deployed at scale outside of research settings.

By combining behavioural science with ML technology within the Holly Health app, the Biomedical Catalyst project introduced a just-in-time adaptive intervention (JITAI) system.

JITAI provides personalised coaching based on each person’s unique health patterns and behaviours, which leverages real-time data and ML models to identify moments when an individual is most likely to benefit from support.

The system uses a Reinforcement Learning approach which learns from user behaviour to improve its support and plan coaching messages for the next day.

As part of the project, results from more than 180 users over a three-month period were analysed and showed that embedding JITAI within the Holly Health app improved both engagement and habit completion.

Dr James Sanders, academic lead at Loughborough University, said: “Our collaboration demonstrates the potential of personalised, data-driven support to help people manage multiple long term conditions.

“By integrating behaviour change research with adaptive ML, we can provide the right support at the right time, empowering people to take meaningful action towards better health.”

Following the project, the partners plan to expand access to the enhanced Holly Health service across NHS and community settings, aiming to support thousands more patients in managing long-term conditions and preventing new ones.

Earlier this year, it was announced that Holly Health would be available through the NHS App through a collaboration with Patients Know Best.