Case Study: Pzizz

One of the start-ups selected for Velocity Health’s preventative digital healthcare accelerator programme, we look at the impact Pzizz could have for the two billion people globally suffering from insomnia.

Health impact

Poor sleep has been declared a public health epidemic, with 60 million people in the US, 31 per cent of Europe, and two billion people globally suffering from insomnia.

As one of the three pillars to health (the other two being nutrition and exercise), lack of proper sleep in both quantity and quality can affect how people think, react, work and learn, as well as potentially causing serious health problems.

Businesses in particular are taking note of these issues. In a study published in the journal Sleep, researchers showed that insomnia costs on average $2,280 per year per worker.

Previously, there has been no widespread solution to insomnia that has no side effects, works consistently and delivers sleep quickly.

Introducing innovation

Pzizz delivers sleep at the push of a button. To understand how, you first have to understand why. In the vast majority of cases, people suffer from insomnia due to ‘too much thinking’ – lying awake at night, unable to shut off their brains.

Pzizz works by calming the mind, and inducing sleep. Using the science of psychoacoustics, Pzizz’s patented system creates dynamic dreamscapes that quickly quiet the mind, putting users to sleep, keeping them asleep, and enabling them to wake up feeling refreshed.

The app is available to download on Apple and android smart phones.

Patient benefit

Pzizz offers three core promises to its users: to help them fall asleep fast, to help them stay asleep, to help them wake up feeling refreshed.

In a paper written by Indiana State University for the Cognitive Technology Journal, a study compared Pzizz against other solutions, whereby Pzizz came out on top by a statistically significant margin.

Pzizz user Tara Pantera found that the app helped to cure her daughter’s night terrors: “I had her start using it thinking that it would just help her fall asleep easier. After about a week, I realised that she wasn’t waking up the entire apartment complex because she was having a terrible nightmare. She wasn’t even talking in her sleep anymore.”

Ms Wolitzer, Washington DC, commented: “Piloted a ten minute Pzizz for my ADHD/ASD students for last period today. Kiddos ‘awoke’ refocused and ready to learn. Total transformation.”

Kristi Carlson uses Pzizz in conjunction with a sleep plan from her doctor. She said: “I love Pzizz – it has made such a difference in my quality of life where sleep is concerned. I had such bad sleep efficiency I had to go to a sleep psychologist, and I discovered Pzizz around the same time. It worked so well in conjunction with his regiment for me, that I told him about the app – and he’s been recommending it to clients! I definitely owe Pzizz a big thanks for helping me with my insomnia that was starting to cause me to have micro sleeps behind the wheel – I’m now back to being healthy and functional.”

Support for innovators

Pzizz was one of the first start-up companies selected to join Velocity Health earlier this year.

Velocity Health, the first digital preventative healthcare accelerator programme in the UK, powered by MSD and Wayra Open Future, challenged the digital start-up community to create solutions that reimagine how healthcare can be delivered to help improve patient outcomes. The programme invests in digital innovations in preventative healthcare to address challenges outlined in the NHS Five Year Forward View.

As part of Velocity Health’s ten-month programme, which started in February 2016, Pzizz is currently benefitting from a network of mentors, coaches and investors. This network will nurture the entrepreneurial talent and technical expertise of Pzizz to enable the company to scale.

Download PDF: Pzizz Case Study