ReBrand ReView: LainaHealth

Ryan Eder, Founder and CEO at LainaHealth, sat down to chat about the company’s rebrand. Stick around for a teardown and peek behind the curtain to see how this brand refresh went from concept to go-live. 

About the company: LainaHealth pairs licensed physical therapists with Laina, an advanced web AI assistant, to dramatically enhance access and affordability of care. Serving commercial, employer, and government markets, LainaHealth consistently delivers twice the patient engagement and measurable, transparent outcomes at less than half the cost of traditional physical therapy. To learn more, visit: https://www.lainahealth.com

Before the rebrand

Many companies begin with a V1 that appears significantly different from their V2, often deviating substantially from their original offering. Netflix originally started as a DVD rental service and has since evolved into an immersive digital entertainment platform. Oscar Health, for example, went from offering direct-to-consumer health plans to a platform-based model designed for insurers, healthcare providers, and employers. 

These are, most often, market signals indicating changes in demand or needs. IncludeHealth evolved by scaling access to care as they refined their solution over the years, ultimately becoming LainaHealth.

“We originally built our technology for other providers to use (not to be a virtual practice ourselves). We initially launched digitized strength equipment for physical therapy clinics in 2018 and then started to expand to computer vision in 2019 through a partnership with Cincinnati Children’s,” Eder added. “Once the pandemic hit, we decided to shut down the equipment product line and go all-in on leveraging computer vision to extend care into the home. To develop the computer vision, we collaborated with the US Air Force and Google for two years. However, we originally built the platform for hybrid care, more specifically, remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM).”

“We did that for a few years and got really good results from enrolled patients. However, there was operational friction in getting patients enrolled from in-person clinics,” Eder added. “Some of our value-based partners began to get frustrated with the lack of technology adoption from traditional practices. They then approached us asking if we would treat patients directly, leveraging our technology, and offer care entirely beyond the clinic.”

“My background is in design, so I'm not a clinician. But we knew that we had the technology, and I had licensed PTs on staff who treat patients. So, we evolved into a virtual practice, brought the technology in-house, and spent all of 2024 quietly validating the model with our initial partners."

The physical therapy market is valued at $61 billion, representing approximately 300 million sessions annually. Millions of Medicare beneficiaries receive physical therapy each year, too. Despite the size of the industry, 35% of physical therapy referrals go untreated due to access barriers such as time, distance, and cost. This lack of utilization creates downstream complications and can impact episodic costs by 60%.

“We found that our AI-enabled care model could be applied to a wide number of cases and demographics, yielding double the engagement at less than half the cost across three payor markets,” Eder shared. “As we got the 2024 results, we wanted to debut it in a meaningful way, and that culminated in an opportunity for us to rebrand and debut this model.” 

How the brand transformed

“There are a lot of logistics needed to prepare for a rebrand. Especially when all your patients are actively receiving care on a web-based platform. Our highest priority was to not disrupt care. It took about six months of careful planning to lead to the rebrand that launched in early May,” Eder added. 

How the brand transformed: the new name

“We knew the name before anything else. Our initial technology leveraged browser-based voices to guide patients through their care plans. These voices weren’t very human and often sounded robotic. As our technology evolved, we developed a natural language voice and personality to the technology,” Eder added.

“I started referring to the technology as ‘she.’ And she needed a name. Knowing that we leverage web-based AI, we wanted to have a nod to AI without over-indexing. I feel many companies AI-whitewash their offering, and we did not want to go in that direction.” 

This phenomenon is known as AI fatigue: the feeling of mental and emotional exhaustion, overwhelm, or disillusionment that arises from the constant exposure to and interaction with artificial intelligence technologies. 

IncludeHealth was the original brand name. Laina is the personification of the WebAI assistant’s voice, an acronym for “Live artificial intelligence navigation assistant.”  If you look closely at the logo, the only two letters that are connected are AI. 

Here is a before-and-after comparison of the company’s name and logo.

How the brand transformed: visual identity

“We wanted to think deeply about the visual tone and wanted a strong break from our legacy while also avoiding the same tone as AI-whitewashing. There’s an abundance of brands that leverage the neon color like Siri, etc.,” he added.

An important concept emerging in the health technology space is: augment, not replace. This refers to the need for technology to improve the lives of workers (especially clinicians) and make their work lives easier, rather than replace them. 

“While yes, we use technology, what we’re really doing is trying to make care more accessible and further bolster the therapeutic alliance between the patient and therapist. We decided to go the opposite visual direction (away from technology), and use earth tones: colors that help people feel more at home, more comfortable,” Eder shared. “It's not about the tech; it's about the people. That really drove the direction we went.” 

A screenshot containing the brand’s new earth tone color palette

“We worked with a group called Carthagos early on, and they helped us to explore the possibilities between a minimalistic black and white palette, earth tones, or something in the middle. We knew the landscape and mapped everything out,” Eder shared. “In our case, we were previously teal as Includehealth, and it was refreshing to go against the grain and pick earth tones without having a dominant brand color.”

One of the brands on the team’s inspiration board was Method, the soap brand. “They had different earth tones for their body wash, and they came up on our board when we were researching for the rebrand. Apple's visual language was another one that came up, too. Everything's minimal with black, white, and greys, with the product being the standout. For us, it felt too stark and didn't make sense. The earth tones felt approachable and suitable for our company and care model,” Eder added.

A screenshot from the Method body wash line that drove some of their inspiration. 

A screenshot from the Apple website, showing the ultra white and black palette.

“As we thought about fonts, we felt the market was saturated with sans serif fonts. We felt that the serif side had a bit more of an old-world feel, and again, we wanted to make it feel a little bit more approachable. All of those decisions get folded into it, and then you get into the copy, etc.,” Eder added. They went from using Roboto as the font to IBM Plex Serif paired with Manrope. 

How the brand transformed: the new messaging

“With us, we needed to differentiate from other preventative wellness models in the space, while also distinguishing ourselves from in-person care. We tie it back to our mission by reinforcing that we’re about the person, not the technology,” Eder added.

To best illustrate how their messaging has changed with the new brand, here is their above-the-fold homepage section before and after. 

At first glance, users notice a starkly different H1, going from “Extending Care Beyond the Clinic” to “Care, without compromise. Access, without limits.”  It also moves from camel or title case to regular capitalization. The old brand’s header has a more B2B feel, and the latter reflects a more human, D2C vibe (with applications to B2B that would appeal to clinical stakeholders), including a home environment hero image with the platform being used on a phone. 

Laina uses a similar tone (than what’s used within the platform), but it’s also different content that expands other applications. “Laina is always about guiding the patient through their recovery and relaying what the physical therapist has put in their care plan. The core of the tone and voice is empathetic, and we wanted to use that caregiving tone that you would want throughout,” Eder shared. “We also wanted to make sure that we differentiated ourselves amongst others in the musculoskeletal space. We heavily mined the landscape trying to find the brand identity that didn't exist in it yet. And we’re happy with how it landed. It’s been well-received.” 

Their core ethos is also reinforced in the home page copy: “Human-centered, technology-enabled.” This piece is often missing from competitive solutions, wanting to be a technology company in the minds of users, rather than taking the opposite approach. 

A mission born from a senior thesis. 

One of the most underserved pieces of a rebrand is reinforcing what shouldn’t change, and identifying elements that can withstand the test of time. For LainaHealth, their mission was one of those pieces that has stayed consistent.

“Technically, LainaHealth started as my senior thesis in design school back in 2006. We're almost two decades into this journey and quest. The mission from Day One has always been about getting access to care,” Eder added. “Even the first machine that we did was inspired by seeing a man in a wheelchair struggle while exercising. The initial vision was to create an accessible machine that people of all abilities could utilize independently.”

“You'll hear often in the start-up world, the term: pivot. I've always thought that we didn't really pivot: we ‘fanned.’ What I mean by that is the anchor point, our focus on accessible care, has remained the same. We’re simply executing this on a broader scale with a larger impact.  Our True North remains the same whether we’re manufacturing machines, using the technology with other clinicians to deliver hybrid care, or treating patients directly under virtual care models. It all boiled down to: how do we make care more accessible for patients?”

They’ve followed through on that mission, producing these types of impacts, according to their rebrand announcement:

• 65% average pain reduction
• Users complete twice as many sessions compared to traditional care
• Users rate LainaHealth at an 8.8 out of 10

Preparing for a launch that didn’t disrupt care.

There are a lot of boxes to check that people don’t think about when rebranding, whether it’s wayfinding materials, social media profiles, or something else. 

“We have live patients receiving care, and our web-based platform has everything pointed to an includehealth.com URL in some way, shape, or form. You've got all these ongoing engagement reminders through SMS or email, etc.,” Eder shared. 

Our biggest concern was disrupting care. We really thought through questions like: 

• When do we start messaging this to patients so they become aware of it?
• How much downtime are we going to need? 
• How do we make sure their care plans aren't disrupted?

Here’s how the LainaHealth team prepared on launch day to avoid disrupting care. “On a Sunday, we put the system down at 6am and it was back up at noon as Laina. This was because we have a fantastic engineering and product team. They really thought through every aspect that interfaced with our patients,” Eder added. “We had all that mapped out with a detailed checklist and sequencing of things to make sure that when we turned it on, the patients never missed a beat.” 

Find your brand’s Laina.

Thinking about rebranding your company? Here is some advice that Eder shared:

“This isn’t our first rebrand; we went through a slight rebrand previously. We were going to be IncludeFitness before we launched. Back in 2018, we turned to IncludeHealth, and there was a slight rebrand there. It was nowhere near as rewarding as this. When you notice other companies rebranding, it’s easy to want to jump on that bandwagon, too,” Eder added. 

“Let’s take the AI-everything example. You may find someone who's doing something that you really like, but that may not make sense for what you're doing, your space, or your customers. Take a really objective, methodical approach and question all of that versus just going after the shiny object.” 

It’s also important to consider whether your company stage and product roadmap necessitate a full rebrand or a partial refresh. “We were debating whether or not it was going to be a major rebrand or not. And when we went down that major rebrand path, we found that we really liked this. We wanted to go all in on that. I would encourage others to do as well.” If you’re on the fence, it may make sense to go big or go home.

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t think about history and brand equity. “We thought through, are we going to lose that legacy? You want to be able to show the new brand, but also to be able to point back to your history. We picked the most powerful articles we had as IncludeHealth, and put them up on our new site. It even says ‘formerly IncludeHealth.’ So they were still there and we still have that reference,” Eder added.

To learn more about LainaHealth, check out their website: https://www.lainahealth.com

Interested in seeing how a marketing partner can help you bring your health tech company’s rebrand or brand vision to life? Get in touch with Jenn today.