In late 2018, when Jon Cody first started sharing his idea of a streaming service focusing exclusively on health content, some of his audiences were skeptical. Nobody questioned the increasing appetite for health-related content, nor the commercial potential. The concerns were around the medium itself.
“Streaming was the thing your kids were doing, right?” he recalled.
But when COVID-19 accelerated healthcare’s digital transition and triggered a broader reliance on technology, Cody’s vision proved prescient. Streaming, to parrot his phrasing, was now the thing you and your kids and your parents and everyone else was doing.
“A couple of things have happened globally that make the idea make more sense today than it did two or three years ago,” Cody noted. “Streaming is undeniable now that Disney and HBO and a lot of the other big guys have jumped in. That world is a lot less clunky.”
With today’s launch of Digital Health Networks, the company enters the streaming mix with an ambitious offering primed to take advantage of the aforementioned trends in healthcare and technology. Showcasing a wealth of programming from organizations like the Mayo Clinic, the Cancer Research Institute and South Florida PBS’ The Health Channel, DHN aims to inform, inspire and entertain in equal parts.
“People are going to come to us for one purpose and stay for a bunch of others,” Cody said. “Maybe you want information on breast cancer and end up taking a look at ‘Living on the Veg.’ There’s no single way we expect people to experience this.”
Indeed, DHN arrives fully formed, with a user-friendly interface (courtesy of platform partner Switch Media) and far more content than one would expect from a streaming startup. Other health media plays have been limited by the both the volume and the consistency (both in terms of production quality and tenor) of their offerings. DHN, on the other hand, has unified around storytelling, even for its most clinical-minded content.
Take “The Human Body,” created in conjunction with Blausen, which owns a library of medical and scientific illustrations as well as 3D animations. From that abundant source material, DHN has created some 330 shorts about everything from hair loss to inguinal hernias.
Other content available at launch includes “Redesign My Brain,” “The New Science of Food” and “The Surgeon & the Soldier.” There are channels devoted to mental health, addiction and cancer, as well as ones specifically catering to medical professionals and parents. Cody expects the number of channels to expand to 25 by …….