Octawell Appoints Expert Masumi Okamoto as Advisor to Enhance Specific Health Guidance Services

Octawell (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Suzuko Takagi), which operates a network of over 5,000 registered dietitians nationwide and provides healthcare services including 'Specific Health Guidance,' has entered into an advisory agreement with Masumi Okamoto, an expert in prevention, health behavior, and digital health, effective June 1, 2026. Through this agreement, the company will promote efforts to further improve the quality of its core business, Specific Health Guidance services. Masumi Okamoto is a behavioral change strategist, evidence advisor, and public health nurse. In this initiative, based on Okamoto's research expertise in prevention, health behavior, and digital health, the company will advance service design, guidance content, and the development of mechanisms to improve the counseling skills of registered dietitians. The company has previously focused on training registered dietitians and working to improve satisfaction and completion rates for Specific Health Guidance. Moving forward, by further reflecting the perspective of behavioral change support based on scientific evidence in its services, the company aims to improve participation, completion, and outcome rates, thereby solving the 'challenges in implementing Specific Health Guidance' and contributing to the prevention of lifestyle-related diseases and the optimization of medical expenses. Specific Health Guidance is a health guidance program conducted for those judged to need lifestyle improvements based on the results of specific health checkups, with the goal of preventing lifestyle-related diseases. On the other hand, there is a challenge that insured individuals eligible for Specific Health Guidance do not necessarily participate actively, even if they have the opportunity to receive guidance, despite the importance of proactive prevention and measures from the perspective of preventing lifestyle-related diseases. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has set a goal for the implementation rate of Specific Health Guidance to be 45% or more across all insurers by fiscal year 2029 in its 4th Specific Health Checkup Implementation Plan. However, the implementation rate for fiscal year 2022 remained at 24.2%, and there is still a large gap from the target. Against this background, there is a demand for designs in Specific Health Guidance that allow subjects to participate positively as an opportunity to review their own lifestyle habits, rather than something they are 'forced to do.' At the same time, programs that generate outcomes that contribute to the 'improvement of health status,' which is the original purpose of Specific Health Guidance, are also required. At Octawell, we have been working on training registered dietitians and building a support system that is close to each individual subject to improve the quality of our Specific Health Guidance services. As a result, our Specific Health Guidance maintains a high level of satisfaction at 96.7%, a completion rate of 96.9%, and an outcome rate of 23.2%. By incorporating Okamoto's expert knowledge, we will strengthen communication design to increase the subject's willingness to participate, support processes that are easy to continue, and an educational system to improve the counseling skills of registered dietitians. In this initiative, based on Okamoto's expert knowledge on behavioral change, we will mainly focus on the following enhancements: 1. Improving participation rates in Specific Health Guidance: We will strengthen guidance, flow, and communication design so that subjects understand the necessity of Specific Health Guidance and want to participate voluntarily. 2. Improving outcome rates: We will strengthen behavioral change support that leads to lifestyle improvements, and aim to provide programs that are committed to 'results' by making Specific Health Guidance a more effective preventive measure and advancing behavioral change through behavioral analysis of subjects. 3. Further improving completion rates: We will design support that allows subjects to continue without difficulty, and build a system that can accompany them to the end while preventing dropouts. 4. Improving counseling skills of registered dietitians: We will strengthen the education and training system to improve the counseling skills of registered dietitians who serve as instructors so that they can provide support that is close to the behavior and psychology of the subjects. We will continue to work on further improving the quality of Specific Health Guidance by combining our registered dietitian network with service design based on scientific evidence. By building a support system where subjects can participate positively and continue their actions without difficulty toward improving their lifestyle habits, we will contribute to the prevention of lifestyle-related diseases and the optimization of medical expenses.