Health care
BY BEN THOMPSON
New blood tests skip the big needle
Some context
BetterWay testing is now available at more than two dozen locations, including Lakeline and Round Rock Sam’s Clubs as of March. The business now aims to build partnerships across the health care sector. “There’s a lot of demand from health systems who want to distinguish themselves by stepping up the way that their blood collection experience works, providing a new option for people that are afraid of needles, are afraid of blood … or people that just don’t want to go out of their way to a lab that’s far away and doesn’t have the best customer service,” Olson said. BetterWay was also recognized in this year’s South by Southwest Innovation Award competi- tion, where the testing concept won the Health and Biotech eld.
Community Impact . The alternative testing method was incubated through the 2010s, aimed at nding a new way to collect high-quality capillary blood. Olson said the business is meant to center around individual patients, rather than other interests, with a ordable results. Clinical trials that started in 2020 found the method is clinically equivalent to testing through conventional blood draws. BetterWay’s ngertip testing launched in Austin last spring. “It’s been a long process of inventing, developing the fundamental technology, validating that it works, and getting the collection device technology through [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] review and approved for the market,” Olson said.
For just over a year, Austin-based BetterWay has been o ering a new and less invasive blood testing process in Central Texas. Traditional blood testing typically involves drawing a test tube’s worth of blood from veins in a patient’s arm. The process can be a barrier; BetterWay reported 40% of patients avoid testing for reasons like a ordability or discomfort. Through BetterWay’s new method, a pea- sized blood sample is drawn from a patient’s ngertip. The simpli ed equipment can be used by non-phlebotomists, allowing access at locations like grocery stores and pharmacies. “We’re enabling new people to o er di erent kinds of health care, which ultimately pushes that health care out closer to where consumers are,” BetterWay founder Eric Olson told
What to expect
From standard primary care to chronic disease monitoring, o erings include metabolic panels; blood counts; and analysis for diabetes, high cholesterol and prostate cancer. The testing menu expanded in April to over 60 available options. Basic checkup package* • Comprehensive metabolic panel: $19 • Hemoglobin A1C (glucose test): $19 • Complete blood count: $25 • Lipid panel (cholesterol, other fats): $25
BetterWay’s simpli ed ngertip blood tests are now available at more than 20 Central Texas locations.
BEN THOMPSON COMMUNITY IMPACT
*BEFORE INSURANCE
SOURCE: BETTERWAY BLOOD TESTING COMMUNITY IMPACT
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