Population Health Meets Tracking

As the healthcare industry continues shifting focus to improved quality and cost management, the importance of wellness, condition management and care management has never been greater. Organizations are moving away from outdated “one-size-fits-all” care management programs and embracing more targeted services. 

Health plans have a great opportunity to effectively engage members to improve health.
The foundation for population health efforts lies in the ongoing analysis of clinical, claims and self-reported data to identify and track members across the spectrum of health. As a result, health plans can predict which interventions will be most impactful and best allocate their resources. For example, this data can drive clinical alerts with members and their physicians about health improvement opportunities. This data can also drive engagement in health and wellness programs, and promote better coordination of care and improved outcomes through care team collaboration and patient empowerment. 

The key to driving engagement in programs that will improve individual health and care lies in program design. Population health programs rooted in clinical analytics can support personalized outreach and engagement tools, including incentive programs. 

Although 70% of employers have some sort of incentive program in place today, questions remain about the most effective strategies. The potential program impact and incentive type can vary per program. Best practices include:

• “Stick” vs. “Carrot” incentives – choosing the right one for your organization. “Stick” incentives commonly result in a penalty or lack of reward for not participating in a program, while “carrot” incentives provide rewards for positive behaviors and participation. A recent study conducted through analysis of data from incentive programs offered to more than 1.3 million members of our population health programs revealed insights around the effectiveness of different incentive strategies Within condition management programs, stick incentives led to a 55% member engagement rate, versus a 15% rate for carrot/reward-based incentives. However, carrot incentives performed better within wellness/lifestyle programs. 

• Incentivizing the right activities. This study also revealed that incentives have varying levels of impact based on activity type. For example, incentives are particularly impactful when applied to Health Risk Assessment (HRA) completion. HRA participation increased by 250% when incentivized. Incentivizing HRA completion also has an important “downstream” impact on the identification of members for health and wellness programs, which can in turn boost engagement rates.  

Analytics also play a key role in supporting ongoing member engagement. Insights derived from population health data can identify the most personalized and relevant messaging, outreach and behavior change strategies. This might include lifestyle coaching, condition management outreach and other options that can keep members engaged in the long term. 

Integrated high-tech and high-touch program components engage members and drive healthier behaviors for individuals such as Claude. Our clinical data revealed that Claude had been diagnosed with high blood pressure. Yet he was unaware of the importance of lifestyle changes to treat this diagnosis. A lifestyle coach began speaking to Claude on the phone regularly. With his coach providing education and motivation, Claude changed his lifestyle so he longer struggles with high blood pressure, and was able to stop taking medication.

In addition to telephonic coaching, personalized, online engagement platforms can also drive healthier behaviors for members.

Health plans looking to improve health can leverage the power of data across health and wellness programs to deliver effective meaningful engagement. 

Shawn Moore is the senior vice president of consumer engagement at ActiveHealth Management.