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How to create a sustainable wellness program

August 17, 2020

Successful wellness programs keep people at the center. In our guide, you’ll learn how data can cut through one size fits all health programs to drive personalized wellness experiences. This person-centric approach can help reduce costs, boost workforce productivity and create a healthier culture overall. Learn how to build a successful wellness program, and track your success using our 7 key metrics.

Return to care

Dr. Jonathan Rubens, former Chief Medical Officer at ActiveHealth

September 22, 2020

The vacation season is over – which means it’s time to go back to work, back to school and back to care. When the pandemic first hit, we locked down and stayed safe at home. Many of us delayed or cancelled needed health care. ActiveHealth’s former Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jonathan Rubens talks about taking care of ourselves as we switch gears into the fall season.

Gratitude: Focusing on accomplishments

Dr. Jonathan Rubens, former Chief Medical Officer at ActiveHealth

January 5, 2021

It’s easy to focus on many of the negative headlines. Instead, let’s reflect on what we’ve accomplished this year. Dr. Jonathan Rubens, former Chief Medical Officer at ActiveHealth, talks about approaching the holidays with gratitude.

There’s a lot to do in a day. Don’t forget to make time for you, too.

March 21, 2021

Busy professionals who are juggling work and family often put themselves last on the list.

At ActiveHealth, we’ve been helping people find their path to better health for over 20 years – so we know our stuff. That means giving really busy people quick, easy tips to take control of their health.

Sign up for ActiveHealth tips for really busy people. If you opt in, you’ll get a practical, doable health tip in your inbox twice a month.

Key findings from a recent study – better health outcomes, proven savings

Dr. Jonathan Rubens, former Chief Medical Officer at ActiveHealth

March 26, 2021

A letter from our Chief Medical Officer

I hope this letter finds you well and preparing to enjoy the longer days and warmer weather. Having spent so much time at home over this past year, being outside holds that much more promise to us all. In this quarter’s letter, I’d like to share some interesting study results with you.

We recently completed a two-year study of our well-being solution, the Lifestyle and Condition Coaching program. Third-party validated1 results show that the program can improve health outcomes and deliver hard dollar savings for clients. Key results include:

  • $27.49 cost savings per identified member, per month2
  • 20% reduction in inpatient costs for identified members2
  • 3.6:1 return on investment2
  • 10% increase in primary care utilization2

The value inherent in the first three results is obvious. But why is a 10% increase in primary care utilization a good thing?

There are two key reasons why this is a positive development. First, members are closing gaps in preventive care. Second, they’re receiving treatment for health issues in appropriate, high-value settings. They’re taking advantage of expanded availability of primary care services, including same day appointments, telehealth and extended hours.

The average primary care visit lasts about 17 minutes.3 So it’s critical that members and their doctors make the most of their time together. That’s where we come in.

  • Before the visit – We can find gaps in care, recommend and prioritize health actions and help educate members about their conditions.
  • After the visit – We can help members understand their care plan, answer questions they have about treatment options and stay motivated to set and achieve health goals.

As members improve their health literacy, they’re better able to understand their health, can participate actively in their care and treatment and have more meaningful conversations with their doctors. Our experience with the pandemic in the last year has made the value of coordination and collaboration with providers even more clear.

A final note

It’s been a long year since we first started adjusting our lives to shelter safely at home. With vaccination distribution efforts underway around the country, it’s exciting to imagine returning to a more normal pace of life.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that once we’ve been fully vaccinated, we may be able to do things that we stopped doing when the pandemic started. Think about being able to be indoors with others who have been fully vaccinated without masks. For now, even after we’ve been vaccinated, we’ll still need to wear masks in public and keep practicing social distance to protect others.4 Though it may seem frustrating, it is important that we continue to follow these necessary precautions.

Lastly, change is seldom easy. For some, just considering the return to pre-pandemic activities, much less adjusting to our new post-pandemic lives, will be stressful. I encourage you to pay special attention to your emotional health. Acknowledge and notice when you or those around you might be struggling. Be encouraged and encouraging. None of us must go this alone. There are resources available to help you and those you love. Please reach out and ask for help if you need it and know that we at ActiveHealth are here to support you wherever you are on your path to well-being.

 

Hard dollar ROI from your well-being program

October 4, 2023

Reducing health care costs is a priority for every organization. However, many organizations don’t expect their well-being solutions to make a direct, measurable, hard dollar impact on medical spend.

It’s time to expect more.

A two-year, third party-validated study showed a 20% reduction in inpatient spending, driving over $27 per identified member per month of hard dollar savings for ActiveHealth clients.

You’ll learn about the three steps we follow to generate medical savings for our clients.

Achieve better health outcomes and lower costs

April 20, 2021

Human resource leaders must balance controlling costs and offering well-being solutions that engage and motivate their employees on their path to better health. You can do both.

The three stages of the health and wellness journey

Dr. Jonathan Rubens, former Chief Medical Officer at ActiveHealth

May 7, 2021

How to help members through their natural ups and downs

Well-being isn’t a destination. It’s a journey with ups and downs. We’ve all experienced different peaks and valleys in our personal journey: feeling energized for a few months, hitting a lull and hopefully regaining momentum. It’s a natural pattern that impacts how most of us engage with our health.

Even if you’ve made managing your health part of the foundation of your life, you’ve probably experienced three core stages: Highly Motivated, Hit a Plateau, and Missing in Action. We know most members will experience all three stages and that each one represents a unique opportunity to improve their well-being. As such, we must watch for changes and adapt our approach to ensure their long-term success. By understanding these stages, particularly why they occur and what to do about it, we can help members accept the natural ups and downs.

Highly motivated members

This is an exhilarating stage – it’s when we’re feeling most eager and empowered about managing our health. Confidence levels may vary, but the energy level is high.

In this stage, we can best support members by helping them identify both short-term and long-term goals and then help design a plan to achieve them. Goal setting is an important part of the journey whether you’re just starting out or setting the next target. Success helps build confidence and momentum that members need to maintain lifelong healthy habits.

When you’re highly motivated, it’s easy to set a lofty goal. Instead, we encourage members to articulate their vision for their well-being. Then, we help them determine smaller, realistic, attainable goals that build toward the ultimate goal. For these members, our chief roles are sounding board and cheerleader.

Accompanying them through short-term goals helps keep highly motivated members engaged over time and to build trust that will be critical if motivation and confidence begin to wane.

Members who’ve hit a plateau

We’ve all been there, especially when early gains start to level out. It’s frustrating to feel the momentum drain away. Members in this category have slowed down in their engagement activity and may have begun to level out in their progress: a combination that points to frustration without abandonment of the goal.

The first thing to convey is that hitting a plateau is perfectly normal. Sometimes a strategy that was successful at first just doesn’t work anymore – sticking doggedly to it is a recipe for aggravation. We need to pause and ask questions to understand what has changed. Then we can find ways to overcome obstacles or review new strategies. To remotivate these members and get them back on track, it’s important to reconnect with their ‘why’ and adjust as necessary.

Our members always set the pace in their journey. We’re there to walk with them – offering reassurance, encouragement and support as needed. It may take time and patience for members to feel more engaged again, but we can help set them up for success.

Members who are missing in action

This is the stage most of us don’t want to talk about. It’s the time when, no matter how much we know about what we should be doing, we just aren’t doing it. There’s usually a distinct lack of motivation and a heavy dose of inertia that can be hard to overcome.

There are dozens of reasons why someone might step away from their health goals. The key here is to try to find the root cause and understand whether we can overcome it, work around it or incorporate it into the plan. The important thing is to recognize and reinforce that lapses happen; we can start again.

Our team is equipped with motivational techniques and clinical support tools that can successfully re-engage and re-motivate members that feel they are slipping. It’s most important to encourage members in this stage not to give up. While they may feel like abandoning their goals, the right assistance and assurance can help them avoid a reset.

Navigating natural highs and lows

Each person’s health journey looks a little different – and that’s okay. We understand that nonlinear engagement is natural and predictable, and we’re available to meet members wherever they are.

The goal is to be able to identify these stages early and to adapt to ensure members can make health and wellness a lasting lifestyle, not a passing phase. We’re committed to helping members stay on track to achieving overall better health engagement and sustainable success.

Meet Marie: A member’s journey toward well-being

May 22, 2021

Marie is busy. She’s a single mom and is constantly tired. She is not aware that she has untreated diabetes. She needs help but is not seeking it out.

Find out how ActiveHealth can bring about the change she needs, improving her well-being and delivering measurable cost savings to your business.

Beyond digital engagement

Dr. Jonathan Rubens, former Chief Medical Officer at ActiveHealth

May 22, 2021

Using multi-channel support on the path to better health

Fully digital well-being programs are very popular at the moment. Many of them have attractive user interfaces, gamified experiences, connect to wearables and integrate incentives. These solutions have a natural appeal to people who are already using wearable devices and apps to manage their health.

When employees get emails about digital well-being solutions from their employer and then opt-in digitally, we must ask ourselves if they’re most likely to attract those who are already engaged in a similar way and relatively healthy. There’s room for health improvement among these members to be sure. However, most of the significant opportunity for health improvement spreads across the broader employee population.

A successful well-being program needs to be able to outreach to and engage vulnerable and at-risk members in multiple ways, including digital support, for the member and coach, as engagement progresses. Let’s look at how that might work.

Marie is in her mid-50s. She has type 2 diabetes but she’s not seeing her primary care provider (PCP) regularly. She’s had a series of minor infections and recent labs show her blood sugar is high. We can capture all of this information about Marie with our CareEngine® technology. We compare what we know about her to thousands of evidence-based clinical rules and what emerges is higher personal risk due to unmanaged diabetes. We can help with that, assuming we can get her to engage.

Marie has seen the emails from her benefits team about the workplace wellness program available through ActiveHealth. She knows it includes a rewards program for things like connecting a fitness device – a device she doesn’t have and doesn’t want. She already feels overscheduled between her responsibilities at work and home and doesn’t want to make time in her schedule for one more thing.

Marie also knows that she hasn’t been feeling good lately. She’s tired all the time and she was recently in the emergency department for a urinary tract infection. So, when she gets a call from Jim, a nurse coach at ActiveHealth, she decides to take the call.

Jim has a lot of information about her, but he doesn’t yet know why she isn’t managing her health or why Marie wants to make a change. ActiveHealth analytics give him the information he needs to see what her most important next step would be. However, he knows that the most important accomplishment for their first call is to establish a rapport, a relationship.

Once the personal connection is in place, Jim can, along with Marie, uncover her why – her motivation for engaging with her health. He can then weave in digital health tools to help Marie achieve short and long-term health goals. He can use a shared electronic health record to set up Marie’s appointment with her PCP, and he can see that she doesn’t fill her prescription and help her set up mail order delivery. She can use secure messaging in the mobile app to check in with him when she needs a boost of confidence or has a question. He can send her links to digital coaching content, including videos and recipes, to support what she’s working on at the moment.

Our members come in all shapes and sizes, and their willingness or ability to use digital tools varies widely too. Some members are self-directed and a robust suite of digital tools and resources gives them sufficient support. However, as prevalent as smartphones and computers are, there are still areas of the country that don’t have ready internet and cellular service.

Well-being solutions must have the capability to engage with members in multiple ways using more than just digital tools. At ActiveHealth, we built our well-being solution with that in mind, so our members can reap the benefits that digital health tools can offer while connecting and being supported however they feel most comfortable as they set out on their path to better health.