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Tuesday, 13 October 2020, 7:00 am CDT

Garmin teams up with Children’s Mercy Kansas City to keep children active during COVID-19

Stay Active Program uses Garmin fitness trackers to help remote learners stay moving and motivated

OLATHE, Kan.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
Garmin® International, Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), is working with Children’s Mercy Kansas City – one of the top pediatric health systems in the country – to help support the Children’s Mercy Stay Active Program, a community-based program that supports students’ learning, overall health and development.

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Garmin teams up with Children’s Mercy Kansas City to keep children active during COVID-19. (Photo: Business Wire)

Several Kansas City area elementary schools are collaborating with Children’s Mercy Kansas City to bring the Stay Active Program to their students this school year. As part of the Stay Active program, physical activity instructors will deliver engaging, structured activity lessons to 4th and 5th grade virtual classrooms using a video conferencing platform. Parents and kids can rely on their Garmin wearable fitness tracker to support their fitness goals by monitoring step count, activity minutes and more. Participants will also receive text messages on their phone providing words of encouragement and rewards as they meet activity milestones. Parents will be given tips and resources on how to help their children stay active throughout the day.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has created numerous challenges for families trying to engage in healthy lifestyles, especially as many students head back to school online. Garmin is excited to support Children’s Mercy Kansas City and continue our mission to help improve pediatric health and outcomes,” said Joe Schrick, vice president of Garmin fitness segment. “The Stay Active program is the embodiment of Garmin’s commitment to provide products and services that help children and parents lead a healthy, active lifestyle.”

Jordan Carlson, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics, Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles and Nutrition at Children’s Mercy, is leading the effort: “The school setting is such an essential source of children’s physical activity that moving school education from in-person to online could eliminate over half of their daily physical activity. The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating socioeconomic disparities, which has major implications for long term health, so it is more important than ever to provide safe opportunities for children from lower-resourced communities to engage in active lifestyles.”

Through the Children’s Mercy Center for Pediatric Innovation, Garmin and Children’s Mercy have formed a strategic alliance and are collaborating on several projects to help improve pediatric health outcomes, such as the use of Garmin wearable fitness trackers to monitor activity levels for Type 1 Diabetes patients. The biometric information from Garmin wearables assists clinicians during telehealth appointments and could someday help drive predictive analytics capable of identifying risk factors for diabetic events before they happen.

Additionally, Garmin and Children’s Mercy are working on research projects to profile the accuracy of these biometrics when worn by children. This validation will support the use of Garmin wearable fitness trackers as they provide meaningful endpoints in remote monitoring solutions. The biometric data will be integrated with the Children’s Mercy infrastructure through use of the Garmin Health API and become part of the clinical flow.

Mark Clements, PhD and MD, Endocrinology and Diabetes, has been leading these efforts: “Remote monitoring is an essential capability for telehealth and chronic disease management. We are planning to integrate Garmin devices into diabetes care to help improve our ability to predict future clinical outcomes and to help us provide more personalized treatments. It is the future of health care, and we are excited to be working with Garmin to bring these resources to our patients and families.”

About Garmin Health

Engineered on the inside for life on the outside, Garmin products have revolutionized the wellness industry. Garmin Health provides enterprise solutions that leverage Garmin wearables and the high-quality sensor data they produce for applications in the corporate wellness, population health, and patient monitoring markets. For more information, visit garmin.com/health, contact the Media Relations department at 913-397-8200, or follow us at facebook.com/garmin, twitter.com/garminnews, instagram.com/garminwellness or youtube.com/garmin.

About Children’s Mercy Kansas City

Founded in 1897, Children’s Mercy is one of the nation’s top pediatric medical centers. With not-for-profit hospitals in Missouri and Kansas, and numerous specialty clinics in both states, Children’s Mercy provides the highest level of care for children from birth through the age of 21. U.S. News & World Report has repeatedly ranked Children’s Mercy as one of “America’s Best Children’s Hospitals.” For the fourth time in a row, Children’s Mercy has achieved Magnet nursing designation, awarded to only about 8 percent of all hospitals nationally, for excellence in quality care. Its faculty of more than 800 pediatric subspecialists and researchers across more than 40 subspecialties are actively involved in clinical care, pediatric research, and educating the next generation of pediatric subspecialists. Thanks to generous philanthropic and volunteer support, Children’s Mercy provides medical care to every child who passes through its doors, regardless of a family’s ability to pay. For more information about Children’s Mercy and its research, visit childrensmercy.org. For breaking news and videos, follow us on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

About The Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition

A partnership between Children’s Mercy Kansas City and the University of Kansas Medical Center, supports active living, healthy eating, and a healthy weight in children and families across the Kansas City region. Our numerous clinical and community-based programs emphasize that starting healthy habits early is critical to childhood development and long-term health. Our community-based programs involve partnerships with schools, neighborhood groups, community organizations, and local and national foundations. Program outcomes achieved include improved physical, cognitive, and emotional health in children of all ages and a reduced risk for developing chronic diseases into adulthood. Dr. Carlson’s Stay Active Program is also funded by a grant from the Claire Giannini Family Foundation.

About Garmin International, Inc. Garmin International, Inc. is a subsidiary of Garmin Ltd. (Nasdaq: GRMN). Garmin Ltd. is incorporated in Switzerland, and its principal subsidiaries are located in the United States, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. Garmin is a registered trademark.

All other brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

Notice on Forward-Looking Statements:

This release includes forward-looking statements regarding Garmin Ltd. and its business. Such statements are based on management’s current expectations. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this release may not occur and actual results could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting Garmin, including, but not limited to, the risk factors listed in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 28, 2019, filed by Garmin with the Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission file number 0-31983). A copy of such Form 10-K is available at https://www.garmin.com/en-US/company/investors/earnings/. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and Garmin undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Category: Corporate


Krista Klaus

913-397-8200

[email protected]

Source: Garmin International, Inc.