Living with ongoing pain after an injury can feel overwhelming. With conflicting online information, countless treatment opinions and the challenge of accessing specialised care, many people struggle to find clarity in their recovery journey.

MoreGoodDays is working to change this. Their digital health platform combines approaches from the gold standard of chronic pain care — traditionally delivered through expensive, intensive multidisciplinary clinics — with the accessibility and convenience of modern technology.

'Our vision is to make the best musculoskeletal persistent pain approaches accessible to everyone who needs it', explains Neala Fulia, CEO and Founder of MoreGoodDays. 'We want to be a safe space for people to work through the uncertainty and get answers they can trust'.

Bridging the research to reality gap

'There can be a 15 to 20 year gap before research gets translated into people's hands', she tells RTWMatters. 'I was keen to close that gap, especially since my own dad has suffered from chronic pain for a long time'.

Fulia’s solution leveraged Australia's world-leading position in persistent pain research. She partnered with the University of South Australia, home to globally recognised researchers like Professor Lorimer Mosley, to develop the evidence-based program.

Since launching in 2021, MoreGoodDays has secured backing from organisations like the Snow Foundation, Victorian Government, University of Melbourne and impact investors Giant Leap and Alice Anderson Fund. It also has a clinical and scientific advisory board.

A biopsychosocial foundation

MoreGoodDays addresses persistent pain through a comprehensive biopsychosocial lens. The platform helps people understand the physical aspects of their pain, as well as how psychosocial factors like fear, work relationships and stress can perpetuate their pain experience.

'A lot of our expertise is around helping people make sense of their pain and understand the patterns that may be keeping it going', Fulia explains. 'Then we help them reverse or overcome those factors specific to their situation'.

A 2-part approach

The program combines digital education with personalised coaching support through 2 main components:

Mobile app experience

Users complete an assessment to see which specialised program suits their condition — back pain, neck pain, whiplash, fibromyalgia or other musculoskeletal conditions. 

They then embark on an 8-week structured learning journey with bite-sized daily sessions that progress from education about their specific pain type to practical self-management tools. 

The app is continually evolving, with plans to soon guide users through exercises and provide immediate feedback when coaches assign activities.

Dedicated coaching team

Each participant is paired with 2 allied health coaches — one with expertise in movement and one in mental wellbeing — who meet with them weekly, alternating between the 2 coaches to apply the tools and strategies in a way that's tailored to their individual needs.

Fulia explains that 'some people already feel confident about movement but struggle with overwhelming stress, so we focus on the psychosocial barriers. Others need more support with physical activity. We're adaptable in how we assign coaching sessions’.

How effective is the program?

Preliminary evaluation comparing MoreGoodDays to national benchmarks found the program as effective as in-person multidisciplinary pain clinics, but significantly more accessible and cost-effective.

The company measures outcomes using validated tools, including the Brief Pain Inventory, self-efficacy measures and pain catastrophising scales. 

Over 3,000 people have used the app globally, and close to 1,000 have completed the full program.

Entering the RTW space

MoreGoodDays was originally focused on direct-to-consumer and private health markets. More recently, it has expanded into the RTW sector through strategic partnerships.

They've partnered with Workcom to bring their programs to the life insurance market across Australia, and with Allianz to serve the CTP population in New South Wales. The company is also in active discussions with workers' compensation schemes and enterprises looking for solutions for their employees.

'The end goal in the RTW space is quite different', Fulia notes. It’s about activating someone's progression and improving their physical and psychosocial capacity so they can be ready for work'.

The power of co-design

MoreGoodDays takes a collaborative approach to program development. Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all solution, they work closely with their partners to understand what success looks like and adapt their programs accordingly.

'Understanding what success looks like for our partners is important', says Fulia. 'There needs to be a level of co-design to create something meaningful for both parties'.

For example, with Allianz, they've adapted their program to address the specific needs of post-motor vehicle crash populations who continue to experience pain 3 months after injury. Together, they’ve created an innovative program tailored for people with persistent whiplash pain that is grounded in best practice care and designed to support recovery across physical, emotional and RTW outcomes.

Moving upstream

Looking ahead, MoreGoodDays is exploring opportunities to intervene even earlier in the pain journey. They're seeing growing interest from large employers seeking scalable, cost-effective solutions for their workforce, particularly those with aging employees or high rates of musculoskeletal issues.

'We're moving toward prevention and early intervention — when someone has niggles but it's not yet that bad, or someone had a recent injury that's starting to get worse', Fulia explains. 'If we can intervene earlier it's more effective, because prevention is better than trying to cure chronic pain'.

The company has received ethics approval to launch formal research with the University of South Australia. They're also partnering with one of Australia's leading health insurers to make the program available at no cost for silver and gold members, with plans to study whether their back pain programs can help avoid surgeries.

Advocating for digital delivery

As a purely digital provider, MoreGoodDays faces regulatory barriers in some workers' compensation schemes. However, Fulia points to emerging research supporting telehealth delivery of musculoskeletal interventions.

'More studies are showing that telehealth delivery of musculoskeletal support like physiotherapy can actually be more effective than in-person', she notes. 'In a telehealth setting, there's immediate expectation that there will be no hands-on treatment, so there's immediate buy-in to active self-management'.

Recent research on osteoarthritis care has shown telehealth sessions with physiotherapists to be better than in-person treatment, supporting the argument for digital approaches in musculoskeletal care.

By making evidence-based persistent pain management accessible through technology while maintaining personalised human support, MoreGoodDays is showing how innovation can bridge the gap between research and real-world care.