What is a digital health twin?

A digital health twin is a digital model of one person’s health. It is built from that person’s own data and updated as new data arrives, so that it reflects how their health is changing rather than how it looked at a single appointment.

How is a health twin different from a health app?

Most health apps look at one thing: steps, sleep or a single measurement. A health twin brings several sources together and reads them as one picture. A change in sleep means more alongside a change in resting heart rate and a recent blood test than it does on its own.

The point is not more data. It is earlier, clearer understanding of what the data means for one particular person.

What goes into a health twin?

Averra, the digital health twin we are developing at Gateway Global, is designed to bring together three kinds of information:

• health records that a person chooses to connect;
• wearable data they already keep in Apple Health or Google Health;
• results from at-home blood tests.

A person decides which records to connect.

How is the picture organised?

Averra is designed around seven twin modules, one for each body system:

Module	What it covers
Cardiovascular	Heart and circulation
Metabolic	How the body uses and stores energy
Respiratory	Breathing and the lungs
Brain and mental wellbeing	Mental health and cognitive wellbeing
Musculoskeletal and mobility	Muscles, bones, joints and movement
Sleep and recovery	Sleep and how the body recovers
Women’s health	Health needs specific to women

What happens when something changes?

A health twin is only useful if it helps people act at the right time. Averra is designed to flag a change, suggest further tests when they are needed, and refer the person to a doctor’s appointment when that is the right next step.

It is also designed to explain. When a blood test or a symptom changes, Averra is designed to serve recorded explanations from doctors, in the person’s own language.

Where does the processing happen?

Health data is personal, so where it is processed matters. Averra is built with Prime Edge AI, our technology for deciding where each AI request is answered. Routine questions are answered on the person’s own device. Harder questions go to a frontier model in the cloud only when they need it.

What a health twin is not

A health twin does not replace a clinician, and it does not diagnose, treat or prevent disease. It is designed to help people understand their own health and to know when to seek care.

Averra is in development and is not yet available. You can read more about it on the Averra page.