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Category: Conversational AI

How to Engage and Retain Patients in Clinical Trials

Posted on by Alex Danzer

When it comes to clinical trials, the stakes are high. It can take 10 to 15 years or longer to complete all 3 phases before licensing, and global spend on trials is expected to reach nearly $69 billion by 2025. It’s no secret that patient drop-out is among the leading causes for delays in timeline and a huge expense. On average, 30% of patients drop out of clinical trials, and the cost to replace a lost patient averages $19,533. The costs associated with lost data, time, and resources are even higher.

Retaining patients throughout clinical trials requires a patient-centric approach. By analyzing patient preferences and ensuring these preferences are an integral part of your engagement strategy, you can increase patient retention at scale. In order to understand how to retain patients, we need to take a closer look at why they leave. The biggest culprits are often related to lack of communication and clarity. Often when patients don’t understand their role, are confused about the trial or process, or are anxious about what to expect during each stage of the trial journey, they’re at a higher risk for dropping out. Unfortunately, patients often feel like subjects rather than an integral part of the research team. Engaging patients by keeping them informed and involved throughout the trial is essential, in addition to communicating with them in the ways they prefer. 

The question is: how do people prefer to engage today?

Borrowing from the Best

By borrowing inspiration from the world’s leading digital brands, we can adopt engagement trends and preferences with a proven success record. Amazon leverages browsing and purchasing data to offer personalized recommendations unique to each member. Social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow consumers to connect and share their interests and thoughts online. Streaming platforms like Netflix offer thousands of TV shows and movies personalized to each subscriber’s viewing habits. By implementing a tailored, digital approach to engagement, we can meet patients where they are and engage them in the ways they prefer.

In a perception and insights study conducted by CISCRP, clinical trial participants were surveyed to uncover clinical trial preferences. Participants were asked how helpful technology was throughout the clinical trial. These were the top 3 identified as most helpful: 

  1. Text Messaging 
  1. Video conferencing as an option to meet with the study doctor 
  1. Smartphone apps for study data collection and support services

This study highlights the need to interact with and engage patients digitally. Digital communication enables researchers to scale their time and to collect data more efficiently. Using SMS texting to provide patients with timely reminders, check-ins, and updates helps hold patients accountable and encourages them to adhere to the study’s regime, while staying updated on their progress.

mPulse Mobile leverages conversation AI and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to send tailored text messages designed to engage and motivate patients over time. Our conversations are empathic, inclusive and multilingual to equitable health engagement, and incorporate behavioral science techniques to empower patients to act. In addition to SMS, we offer IVR and email communication channels. By understanding your patient population, we can further enhance and tailor conversations to feel highly relevant and deliver the right support and information throughout the clinical trial.

In the same perception and insights study conducted by CISCRP, clinical trial participants were asked, “If you were to participate in a clinical research study, how important are the following to your participation?” The top 5 areas participants ranked as most important: 

  1. Being provided with supporting information on managing my health condition in general  
  1. Being provided with supporting information on the clinical research study 
  1. Being provided the opportunity to complete a satisfaction survey on your clinical research study experience to provide feedback 
  1. Supportive Services 
  1. Availability of mobile applications

Providing an online destination for patients to access information about their condition and the study, connect with other patients, complete surveys and questionnaires, ask questions and receive additional support ticks all the boxes.

mPulse Mobile curates white-labeled learning destinations customized to each patient. We partner with leading health organizations to curate cinematic health content designed to build self-efficacy. Content features a variety of expert-led videos, animations, polls, assessments and surveys, discussion boards, resources, and custom calls-to-action. Patients can complete daily diaries, learn more about their condition, and engage with the research team in a single destination. All data is captured on the back end and is available via a real-time dashboard with EDC integration options. Our learning destinations have an average 70-minute engagement time per patient per session and are proven to sustain engagement over time.

mPulse can link patients directly to videos, polls, or diary logs within the learning destination to provide a seamless UX to education, support, and activities. In addition to learning destinations, mPulse offers short-form content that can be sent via email or SMS with customizable CTAs.

Industry -Leading Health Engagement 

mPulse Mobile is transforming digital engagement for healthcare’s leading organizations through proven solutions that combine conversational AI with integrated streaming content.  

Trusted by 200+ health organizations to personalize over 1 billion conversations annually, mPulse Mobile’s innovative technology and engagement strategy deliver business efficiencies, improve health outcomes, and inspire a more equitable, healthier world, one person at a time. 

 To discover how mPusle can transform your patient retention strategy, contact us. 

Improving Maternal Health Outcomes with Digital Trends

Posted on by Andrea Amelse

The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate when compared to 10 other developed nations. Up to 60% of pregnancy-related deaths and adverse health outcomes in the U.S. can be prevented by broadening accessibility, having higher quality of care, and improving education and available resources. Proper preventive and continuity of both prenatal and postpartum care is imperative, and health organizations play a foundational role in improving maternal health outcomes for our nation.

Technology’s Role

In an increasingly technology-driven world, organizations continually lean on digital trends to drive growth and business efficiencies. 97% of U.S. adults own a mobile phone, and with generative AI platforms such as ChatGTP and social media AI photo filters becoming mainstream, we’re beginning to see the power and potential of next generation technology.

But how does this tie into health organizations and maternal health? 

A lot more than you may think. mPulse Mobile has harnessed innovative technology and digital trends and applied them to the healthcare landscape to educate and empower health consumers to take action. By borrowing inspiration from the world’s most innovative digital trends, we continually deliver best-in-class health outcomes. Technology’s leading trends, our in-house learning and design experts, and access to rich data and population insights enable us to create highly relevant and engaging digital experiences. Our solution to prenatal and postpartum care leverages this expertise and tackles the challenges associated with our nation’s poor maternal health outcomes, opening doors to accessibility, catering to care preferences, and building knowledge.

Broadening Access

We know 97% of American adults own a mobile phone, so leveraging this communication channel to reach more consumers is a great place to start. Being able to scale this resource requires automation, and to avoid abrasion, we lean on conversational AI and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to direct consumers to the right tools and resources. 

The ability to send pregnant members a list of ObGyns and clinics closest to where they live, or a phone number to call and schedule removes barriers and makes it easier to set up an appointment in a manner of minutes. If the member replies they don’t have access to reliable transportation, for example, NLU can recognize that barrier, and automatically reply with resources available that provide low or no-cost transportation options.

Care Preferences and Health Equity

The disparities in maternal health outcomes and the lack of representation and consideration for consumers who are disadvantaged by our health system is undoubtable and requires prioritization. mPulse Mobile is committed to helping reduce maternal health disparities and inequities by designing our programs to be relevant, relatable and address the needs and preferences of diverse communities. 

Our pregnancy solution is culturally competent, with multilingual messaging and NLU tailoring, and inclusive replies and opt-outs (miscarriage opt-out, not saying “pregnant women”). For SDoH level data, we factor in zip codes to deliver relevant resource links, and inclusive visual and streaming content representation. To create a personalized and relevant experience throughout, the member’s due date is used to provide timely information, and custom keys (name, provider name, ect.) further enhance personalization.

Building Knowledge

Information sharing and access to news today is more broadly available thanks to smart devices and the internet. With Americans spending an average of 1,300 hours each year on social networking platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, it’s critical to derive inspiration from these platforms to maximize engagement and remove friction. More than 50% of expectant Americans download and use pregnancy-related apps for educational resources and pregnancy-related updates. Health organizations are perfectly positioned to harness these trends and provide a frictionless experience to expectant consumers to not only engage, but to deliver the right education and resources, close care gaps, and gather rich population insights.

mPulse Mobile’s prenatal and postpartum solution uses a combination of expert-led videos from Dr. Christine Noa Sterling, board-certified ObGyn, interactive modules, and short stories and animations to educate, and empower members around key milestones related to theirs and their baby’s health. Content is sent via SMS at key moments based on each consumer’s due date and encourages them to schedule routine appointments and make healthier choices. Our in-house team of behavioral scientists and instructional strategists leverage learning theory and high-quality cinematography and animation to produce content designed to drive action. See for yourself.

mPulse’s Prenatal and Postpartum Solution

mPulse Mobile’s pregnancy solution is a 12+ month interactive SMS program designed to improve quality performance and deliver better health outcomes. The solution specifically targets multiple HEDIS® measures and is proven to engage and deliver outcomes such as a 2X engagement rate with maternity care management services, a 7.1pp increase in the prenatal and postpartum care measure (PPC) owned by NCQA, and 61% engagement across 400,000 Medicaid members. By incorporating our behavior change methodology throughout all conversations and streaming content, our comprehensive approach broadens access, caters to individual preferences, and educates to improve health outcomes at scale.

Poor Healthcare Technology Experiences Erode Consumer Trust. AI Can Repair Relationships.

Posted on by Sanjeev Sawai

This article was written by Sanjeev Sawai, Chief Product and Technology Officer at mPulse Mobile, and was originally published on healthcareittoday.com on April 14, 2023.

The expansion and specialization of health networks has made it difficult for most consumers to navigate and advocate for themselves within today’s healthcare organizations.

For the average health consumer, simply identifying in-network providers, requesting a cost estimate, or scheduling a medical test presents a major hassle. Add a chronic condition or difficult diagnosis in the mix and the burden of accessing required care only increases. Over time, unsatisfactory healthcare interactions leave consumers frustrated and burned out, eroding their trust in healthcare organizations’ ability to consistently and reliably provide the care they need. 

But there’s a solution that can minimize the strain on consumers and healthcare organizations: AI.

Advances in AI and machine learning (ML), including ChatGPT, offer key opportunities for healthcare organizations to decrease administrative hurdles, enhance communication, and ultimately build stronger relationships with consumers. However, to deliver frictionless, personalized interactions, these tools require organizations to unify historically siloed technology platforms and data on the backend — factors that are often the root cause of consumers’ ongoing frustrations.

Applied at scale, AI tools ensure consumers can access the care they need — and enable healthcare organizations to provide exceptional service that earns consumers’ long-term trust.

Disparate Data Challenges Faster AI Adoption

To work effectively, AI tools require access to data capable of providing a holistic view of individual healthcare consumers. But centralizing data from core systems (including EHRs, CMSs, patient portals, and billing systems) is a difficult, time-consuming task. These efforts are often underfunded by healthcare organizations, resulting in delays that hamper innovation, including AI adoption.

As a result, interoperability ranks among the top three obstacles to innovation, according to healthcare executives and leaders — with many healthcare organizations still struggling to build infrastructure that enables their technology platforms to easily share information. By 2025, less than 30% of healthcare organizations plan to invest in the infrastructure (specifically data activation platforms and data lakes) necessary to achieve full interoperability.

Until foundational interoperability work is complete, healthcare organizations will settle for individual point solutions rather than comprehensive AI solutions capable of creating cohesive consumer experiences across all touchpoints. 

The good news is many healthcare organizations already recognize the importance of dismantling entrenched digital fragmentation as a first step toward strengthening cybersecurity and exploring emerging cloud opportunities.Tapping into the benefits of consumer-centric AI tools presents another compelling incentive to fast track digital transformation and redirect resources toward more robust data management solutions.

How AI Builds Trust in Healthcare Organizations

When it’s integrated horizontally across your operations, consumers won’t necessarily realize they’re interacting with AI. It simply becomes an unobtrusive tool that improves access to information and services — strengthening consumer trust one frictionless interaction at a time.

Let’s take a closer look at two key benefits of a seamlessly integrated AI solution:

Cohesion Across Touchpoints

The demand for digital healthcare has exploded over the past few years — and consumers’ expectations for frictionless digital interactions have risen alongside it. But it’s difficult to meet every consumer’s desire for instant, personalized support with people-power alone.

AI-assisted chat capabilities help consumers access relevant medical and administrative information and perform simple tasks, like scheduling an appointment or refilling a prescription, around the clock. Likewise, AI tools can unify disparate operations centers by providing your organization with a single command center. Consumers are never left scouring multiple websites and apps for the information or contact point they’re seeking. Instead, they encounter consistent details no matter where they turn — whether online or in person.

Personalized and Positive Consumer Interactions

Nothing feels more impersonal to a consumer than repeatedly providing information to customer service agents who eventually redirect them to yet another siloed department. People want to be treated as humans, not numbers — especially in such a personal and stressful context as healthcare.

Paradoxically, AI can humanize your organization by offering personalized, useful interactions that drive engagement — and ultimately trust. By integrating insights from consumer data analytics and principles of behavioral science, AI tools enhance day-to-day engagements with consumers and better cater to their unique needs. This could go beyond administrative functions to include automated prompts or tailored text communications about preventive health measures or chronic illness management. For example, a two-way SMS messaging tool powered by AI could remind a consumer that it’s flu season, offer an easy prompt for scheduling an upcoming vaccination appointment, and provide educational resources encouraging vaccination based on a patient’s responses.

AI capabilities are poised to revolutionize the healthcare consumer experience, reducing administrative obstacles and improving communication between providers and patients. But to make AI deployments as effective as possible, your organization must first synthesize siloed technology platforms and data sources to establish a holistic, reliable view of all consumers across all operations centers. This reorchestration requires an initial IT investment, but the potential efficiency gains are enormous. And so are the benefits for consumers.

When implemented effectively at scale, AI tools make it easier for consumers to access healthcare — the first step in fostering a relationship of trust between consumers and their healthcare organizations.

About Sanjeev Sawai

Sanjeev Sawai, Chief Product and Technology Officer at mPulse Mobile, has a passion for building innovative software products. For the last decade and a half, he has led product and technology teams to deliver market-leading products. mPulse is a confluence of Sanjeev’s recent experience in healthcare, and a dozen years of past work in conversational AI and speech applications. Sanjeev has brought to market enterprise grade and SaaS-scale software products in a variety of markets, most notably telecommunications, financial services and healthcare. He has led the development of market-leading products in the voice solutions market and built embedded systems for defense applications. Previously, Sanjeev has held leadership positions in product development at HealthEdge, Altisource, Interactions, Envox, and Brooktrout.

Improving the Patient Experience: Solving the Top Four Healthcare Challenges 

Posted on by Nicole Lopez

Patients are currently going through a transformation in the healthcare system. They are less like the patients we’ve always known them to be and are starting to act more like consumers. And what is the primary trait of a consumer? Choice.

Patients today are fully fledged, active participants in their own healthcare and are making choices between different services and providers the way they make choices between brands. This changing dynamic requires that the healthcare system makes that shift right along with them. The goal of physicians, health systems, and accountable care organizations should be to ensure the patient’s experience is personalized, relevant, and on par with what they have come to expect from consumer experiences in all areas of their life. There are, however, some common challenges that we see healthcare organizations grappling with while moving toward this new normal, which can only be solved with the right mix of expertise and technology. But they can be solved for—with the result being a more valuable patient experience and relationship.

HealthCare is Challenging 

It is. And these challenges are pervasive across many organizations we work with. We’re talking about gaps in Data, Technology Capabilities, Engagement Strategy, and Organizational Alignment. 

Let’s dive into each one.

Data Gaps 

Do you have the right cell phone number? Do you know if the number you have is even for a cell phone? Is it a land line instead? Do you have the correct contact preferences? Do you have information on their social determinants of health (SDoH) and the barriers to care they’re facing? This data can make all the difference when outreaching to patients and attempting to drive them to a specific action. How can you reach out to someone if you don’t have the right number? How can you affect someone’s behavior if you don’t understand their circumstances?

Solving for Data Gaps 

In all aspects of your outreach, you need to be data driven. This starts with the ability to collect and harness your data. An SDoH Index like mPulse Mobile has is the kind of data that allows you to tailor conversations to a person’s circumstances. Specific capabilities, such as two-way automated conversations, allows us to understand what people are doing and why they’re doing it. By being able to ask people directly and receive an answer, we can take that information, record it as data, and do analysis on it to identify trends. The most valuable insights you can have will come directly from your patients themselves. Of course, this can only be done at scale with the right technology.

Watch the on-demand webinar to hear about outcomes from healthcare organizations who have found the solutions »

Technology Capability Gaps 

Having all the data in the world is little help if you don’t have the technology to use it at scale. You might be deploying one way messaging programs, which means you aren’t collecting information back from your patients to help personalize the conversation and further improve your interactions with them—and forget trying to do this on a 1:1 basis without the ability for your technology to automate these conversations.

Solving for Technology Capability Gaps 

Conversational AI and Natural Language Understanding are two important foundational capabilities that can help close this gap. Conversational AI ensures you can tailor your conversation to the individual you’re speaking with, making it more likely you’ll connect with them and drive the desired action. With National language understanding, we can communicate with patients in a way that feels familiar, conversational, and natural. You get at the intent of what your patient is saying and account for humanness (such as typos or slang). At mPulse, we have linguists and computer programmers on staff who work together to come up with scripting that can interpret different combinations of languages, typos, and slang to get to the intention.

Gaps in Engagement Strategy 

Maybe you do have the means to connect with your patients with two-way automated conversations. But are you saying the right things? Are your engagements tailored and optimized to ensure maximum outcomes? How often are you messaging? What’s the tone? Do you have a team dedicated to refining all these different aspects of your strategy?

Solving for Gaps in Engagement Strategy

When you understand how people think and make decisions, you can craft your outreach in a way that predicts their response and uses that prediction to nudge them in the direction you’d like. This is the reasoning behind the behavioral science techniques we bake into our solutions. Humans are fairly predictable, and we mostly react the same. Let’s use that predictability to push them toward healthy behaviors! Many behavioral science techniques are used to build our programs: cognitive overload could determine the pacing of our program; authority bias may dictate who we have giving the information; and storytelling effect could dictations how we give the information;

Don’t know what these behavioral science techniques are? Watch our on-demand behavioral science webinar series to learn how they can transform your engagement strategy! »

Gaps in Organizational Alignment 

Your patient has gotten your messaging, they’ve made the appointment. Now, are you guiding them through transition of care in the most effective way possible? For example, ensuring they’re scheduling an appointment with a PCP after an ER visit.

Solving for Gaps in Organizational Alignment 

The goal is to produce trust-building patient experiences consistent across the entire experience with a brand. For this, we have enterprise engagement, which allows us to handle the scale necessary for organizations which can have 100,000+ patients.

We need experiences consistent across that member base while also personalized to match each individual’s needs. That’s a tall order. And this comes back full circle to data and technology—both are needed to ensure this patient experience is protected.

The New Normal

Digital trends are changing the game. Patient expectations are changing the game. The choices they have and the experiences in everyday life they’ve grown used to are creating new rules of the road in healthcare. As it should. We have technology in the market today that allows these experiences to be exceptional, so why should they (and we) settle for anything less? 

Health Equity, Part 1: How Can Digital Engagement and Conversational AI Promote Health Equity?

Posted on by Smita Bhattacharya

When COVID-19 overwhelmed our nation’s healthcare system, a stark reality emerged: health inequity. As people of color experienced a disproportionately high burden of COVID-19 cases and deaths, highlighting a gap in our system, the topic of health equity surfaced across public health agencies, policy makers, healthcare systems and providers, and employers alike, and the possibility of digital health solutions bridging these gaps and make quality healthcare more accessible came to the forefront. 

To promote health equity, it is vital to begin with a universal definition. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines health equity as “the state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain the highest level of health.” Achieving this aspiration requires uplifting communities that have been minoritized and excluded and promoting affordability and accessibility to quality healthcare and other social services. First, let’s start by looking at equity and how it is different from equality.

Equality vs. Equity: The Road is Long 

While these terms may sound similar, equality and equity are not synonymous! Creating equitable solutions over equal solutions has the profound impact to uplift marginalized populations. 

Imagine that you must go five miles down the road. In an equal society, everyone who needed to travel this distance would be given the same bicycle. What determines who makes it down the road and who makes it quickest?

  • Personal conditions, such as their biking skills, what they are carrying, and whether they have the ability to pedal with their feet.
  • Circumstances of the environment such as whether the road is bumpy, inclined, or flat.

In an equal society, while everyone may have a bicycle, they are not truly equipped with the resources they need to succeed

In contrast, in an equitable society, everyone is set up to reach the end of the five miles at the same exact time, regardless of conditions. In a scenario of equity, each person has a bicycle that has been developed for their unique needs, such as a motorized vehicle for wheelchair users or a bicycle with more traction to endure the bumpy roads.

Visualizing Health Equity: One Size Does Not Fit All Infographic
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2022

When it comes to healthcare, the same logic follows: a uniform approach will not work across populations. True health equity will require providing each member with the tools they need to overcome barriers and ultimately achieve their highest level of health. There are a few key digital engagement strategies that can be especially effective in addressing health inequities among member populations. 

Streaming Health Content

diabetes eye exam streaming health content in SpanishHealth illiteracy is one of the biggest barriers to equitable healthcare, and in response, streaming health content is an effective method for health literacy promotion. It borrows from the best of digital content strategy, behavioral science, and instructional design to create powerful learning experiences to address health literacy barriers in a consumer-friendly format and to encourage hard to reach members to take control of their health outcomes. Instead of telling people what they need to do, we are educating them on why it’s important, which serves to develop intrinsic motivation to get care and take healthy actions. Everyone has the knowledge needed and everyone can make health decisions with all the information available.

Interested in learning more about our approach to health literacy? Register for Activate2023: Designing Customer Journeys for Health Equity »

Conversational AI and Natural Language Understanding

With the use of artificial intelligence, conversations can be programmed to understand responses in any language and intelligently respond in that same language. It can also allow plans to respond automatically to barriers created by inequitable circumstances, such as transportation, cost, or health literacy issues. Then it can provide real time solutions to move the member forward toward the desired action. This serves to create more equitable health experiences for those members who aren’t starting on a level playing field.

Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) 

Research shows SDoH have a greater impact on health and well-being than medical care. This is because where a person lives, learns, works, and plays can affect their health in many ways. There are many non-medical factors that affect health and wellness:

  • Economic Stability: employment, income, expenses, debt, medical bills, and support 
  • Physical Environment: housing, transportation, safety, parks, playgrounds, walkability Education: literacy, language, vocational training, pre-schools, higher education 
  • Food: hunger, access to healthy, affordable options 
  • Community: social support systems, community engagement, discrimination, stress 
  • Healthcare System: health coverage, provider access, provider cultural competency, quality of care

These factors commonly overlap to affect health outcomes (health status, mortality, and morbidity).

Technology can bridge the gap created by SDoH. At mPulse mobile, we believe SDoH can be addressed directly using disaggregated data, which ensures representation of marginalized populations. We created a proprietary SDoH Index which leverages a weighting system to maximize its predictive ability. Factors such as food insecurity, transportation access, neighborhood, and environment are taken into account for each individual member to provide a more tailored, relevant, and empathetic conversation.

Bridging Gaps: Our Commitment to Equitable Health

Digital interventions can also be a powerful tool to bring communities together during a crisis (such as quick response to the COVID-19 pandemic), spread education, send interventions in multiple languages, and find different ways to get people the resources they need.

The digital platform can be used to spread health education in engaging ways (e.g. videos, courses), utilizes behavior science to break down fears and misinformation, and uses a multicultural lens to provide multiple languages and ensure cultural sensitivity. Together, this technology can bridge inequities early on, and in turn, can help mitigate preventable, deadly health consequences. 

Ultimately, we aim to close gaps in care and eliminate preventable health disparities by integrating health equity competencies across all of our work, and allow all people a fair and just opportunity for the highest level of health.

To learn more about the impact digital engagement can have on health equity, register for Activate2023: Designing Customer Journeys for Health Equity.

Delivering Equitable Health Experiences Among Medicaid Populations

Posted on by Nicole Lopez

Earlier this month, four of mPulse Mobile’s best and brightest subject matter experts packed up and headed to sunny Florida to attend The Strategic Solution Network’s (SSN) 14th Annual Medicaid Innovations Forum. A huge topic of conversation was, not surprisingly, the FCC’s Declaratory Ruling on phone outreach for redetermination. Released in late January, this ruling opened the door for plans to utilize texting in their efforts to maintain coverage for millions of Medicaid members. 

Texting, however, has always been a big topic of conversation for us. 97% of US adults own a cell phone, and it seems everywhere you go people are glued to their devices. That is what makes SMS texting such an incredibly effective tool to add into your mix of channels. We spoke about just that during our session at the conference. 

Healthcare Experiences Powered by Technology

For that session, Reva Sheehan, mPulse Mobile’s Senior Director of Customer Insights, had the opportunity to present onstage with Sammie Turner, Quality HEDIS Manager for Maryland Physician’s Care. Maryland Physicians Care, a customer of mPulse Mobile and the third largest Managed Care Organization in the state of Maryland, administers healthcare services to Maryland’s HealthChoice enrollees. 

Maryland Physicians Care and mPulse partnered together to deploy a two-way SMS text campaign targeting multiple preventative care screenings, including Breast Cancer Screenings, Well-Child Visits, SSI, and Lead Screening in Children, and we delivered the results of that program to the audience.  

With reach rates ranging from 83% to 95%, we were able to target and communicate with thousands of their customers. The main metric we wanted to observe, however, was the success of texting compared to outbound calls. Is texting a more effective method of outreach to obtain scheduled appointments?

We focused on breast cancer screenings and found strong evidence that it was. After 30 days of outbound calls, 123 breast cancer screenings were scheduled. But with the texting program, we found that we were able to schedule 94 screenings in just four days.  

The texting program was able to get 76% of the screenings scheduled that outbound calling did in just a fraction of the amount of time and did so without the manual work of call center representatives. 

But why is this so? How is texting, which may seem less personal, able to have so much success so quickly?

Three Core Capabilities for Texting Outreach

Texting allows us to reach a large population in a single event and assists in reducing the volume of outbound calls and or letters. If you have the right technology powering your texting program, however, it turns into more than just a text but into a dynamic two-way conversation that can be used to connect with a member, break down barriers to healthcare, and deliver better outcomes.  

There are three core components that enabled this experience for Maryland Physicians Care’s members: two-way text capabilities, natural language understanding, and educational content. 

Two-way Conversations Identify and Address Barriers to Care 

When you have dynamic, interactive conversations with your members, you truly address the barriers they face when trying to get care. Lack of transportation, inability to get time off work, cost, and other factors all play a role in creating an inequitable health experience.

When a plan has the technology to have a real conversation with its members at scale, it can not only identify the reasons members aren’t scheduling screenings, but it can take it a step further to provide solutions and education for the member, such as helping them find a doctor like you see in the example below from Maryland Physicians Care’s program. When the door for care is opened a bit wider for one person, it makes the healthcare system a little bit more equitable for all.

Interested in these capabilities? Learn how these same concepts can be applied to outreach around the end of continuous enrollment » 

Natural Language Understanding and Culturally Appropriate Content 

Natural Language Understanding (NLU), a type of artificial intelligence, is the ability for our system to interpret the responses from the member (even if they are non-standard responses or slang) and respond back in an intelligent manner. mPule Mobile’s NLU is available in 7 languages with translation services for 13.  

One example of NLU in Maryland Physicians Care’s program focuses on creating a more culturally sensitive experience. For this program, the two-way SMS content automatically converted from English to Spanish if the member responded in Spanish. Their language preferences were then reported back to the plan for future interactions. The ability to communicate with your health plan in the language that you are most comfortable with makes it much more likely that they’ll keep communicating and take the desired action.

Leveraging Educational Content to Promote Health Literacy 

One thing we all know is how vital health literacy is to the concept of health equity. The ability to understand not only the care system, but your own body and healthcare needs is critical.  

Videos can leverage educational content to help overcome barriers and inspire action by delivering bite-sized stories and entertainment straight to the member’s phone during a text exchange. The below example was used for a diabetes eye exam program run with a large national health plan. There was a 274% increase in link clicks to scheduling when this video was used in the text outreach vs when it wasn’t.

Equitable Healthcare for All 

The dynamic conversational engagement used by Maryland Physicians Care enabled them to reach more members and deliver tailored resources and calls-to-action to empower members to act and deliver better outcomes at scale. When each member has the opportunity for a personalized and relevant conversation about their health with their plan, they’re receiving a more equitable experience.  

Interested in these capabilities for a redetermination program? Learn how these same concepts can be applied to outreach around the end of continuous enrollment! 

Celebrating Achievement in Health Equity and Technology Innovation at the Activate Awards

Posted on by Gabe Kratzer

mPulse Mobile recently wrapped up its fifth annual Activate conference with the Activate Awards, which provided yet another celebration of healthcare leadership, innovative program design, and improved health outcomes amidst various health engagement challenges.

The theme of Activate2022, The Power of Behavioral Science to Drive Health Action, was reflected throughout the conference with captivating speaker sessions and expert panel discussions. Networking inspired exciting conversation around innovative technology, behavior change design, and consumer experience, and the Activate Awards surely brought those conversations full circle.

The awards help illuminate health plans, health systems, health service providers, PBMs and other types of healthcare organizations that utilized new strategies or unique tools to activate their consumer populations. The companies highlighted each year typically face barriers with engaging a certain population or driving specific health actions, so they search for innovative solutions to tackle those challenges. 

For example, in 2019, CountyCare saw drastic rates of members losing Medicaid coverage, so the managed care organization (MCO) implemented automated text dialogues and saw their Redetermination rates improve by 3.3 percentage points in just one month, subsequently running away with the Most Improved Consumer Experience award. Last year, CareSource incorporated secure surveys, SMS, and streaming video to significantly impact their hard-to-reach members – they won 2021’s Best Use of Conversational A.I.  

The same story is true for this year’s winners.   

The remaining 3 award categories are Achieving Health Equity, Most Innovative Solution and Most Significant Outcome. Like the teamwork and critical thinking generated from breakout workshops and Q&A during the conference, the awards are a celebration of two companies that partnered together to overcome consumer barriers or gaps in care by building uniquely tailored engagement programs. 

Here are the winners of the 2022 Activate Awards: 

Achieving Health Equity

 
Program Goal
Increase Colorectal Cancer Screenings

AltaMed Health Services is one of the largest Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) in the United States and provides a range of health services to Latino, multi-ethnic and underserved communities in Southern California. After seeing a steep drop in colorectal cancer screenings during the COVID-19 pandemic, the health center sought a solution that could help patients overcome barriers like language and lack of awareness of services. 

AltaMed partnered with mPulse to deliver multi-lingual, educational health content to patients using mobile fotonovelas tailored to both males and females who had not completed a screening. Patients received and digested vital communication about getting screened, where to find the nearest screening site, and more through culturally sensitive stories delivered in a familiar format.  

A randomized control study found that 63% of patients who responded to the fotonovelas either liked or loved it, and 39% reported it positively impacted their willingness to act. By educating patients with curated content, AltaMed closed a key screening gap, lifted health literacy and perhaps most importantly – made significant progress toward health equity.

Notable Outcome
Patients that viewed the fotonovelas (19%) were more likely to submit a sample for cancer screening than patients in a control group (11%)

Best Use of Conversational A.I.

 
A Technology-Enabled Health Services Company
 
 
Program Goal 
Promote smoking cessation among teen vapers 

This leading health services organization employs over 210,000 employees globally and utilizes technology-enabled solutions to promote consumer wellness and population health. A major public health problem facing young adults, particularly teens, across the U.S. is the use of e-cigarettes, or vaping. The company sought to promote smoking cessation among teen vapers, a cohort still widely understudied, by implementing intelligent conversational solutions and educational content.

They collaborated with mPulse to build a personalized SMS program, lasting 4-6 months, that leveraged Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to deliver automated, interactive text dialogues to a targeted teen population. Individuals were also provided custom-built streaming health videos that offered tips on quitting and even an option to connect with an SMS coach. 

The use of NLU enabled the delivery of automated messaging based on text responses, which helped the organization direct each individual to the appropriate resource. The program yielded an 85% engagement rate, and ultimately 69% of participating teens completed the program. The key result, that 73% of teens in the program set a date to quit vaping, demonstrates the value in utilizing automated text conversations and on-demand content to promote smoking cessation in vulnerable teens.

Notable Outcome 
73% of participating teens set a quit date
 
 

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Most Improved Consumer Experience

 
CalOptima Health
 
 
Program Goal 
Increase Awareness of SNAP benefits (CalFresh)

CalOptima Health is a County Organized Health System that provides health insurance coverage for low-income children, adults, seniors and people with disabilities. As Orange County’s largest health plan, the organization includes a network of over 10,000 primary care doctors and serves over 900,000 Medi-Cal beneficiaries. The health system looked to address a gap they had identified with low-income families enrolling in the state’s food assistance program, CalFresh, federally known as SNAP.

CalOptima and mPulse partnered to launch a two-way texting campaign, which utilized interactive SMS powered by NLU and tailored to 7 different languages. The health plan addressed language barriers by delivering vital information about CalFresh’s food security benefits to underserved families and Medi-Cal members in their preferred language.  

Through automated text workflows, members could respond in their native language with answers like: “I already have CalFresh” or “I want to apply.” The program has continued to expand, having delivered over 5 million messages in 2022 already. Communicating with members according to their preferences about important CalFresh benefits helped CalOptima both improve consumer experience and reduce food insecurity for an at-risk population.  

 
Notable Outcome 
Over 5 million messages delivered to members in 2022 about CalFresh benefits

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Most Innovative Solution

 
 
Program Goal 
Drive members to schedule a diabetic eye exam

Humana is one of the five largest health plans in the country according to member enrollment and has been partnered with mPulse for over 10 years. With more than 20 million members, including over 5 million Medicare members, the plan looked to close a gap with their members scheduling the annual diabetic eye exam.

The plan worked with mPulse to launch an SMS texting campaign to increase awareness around the importance of the eye exam and to drive members to schedule an exam. The program featured A/B testing, in which one half of members was provided a 30-second streaming health video in the initial message while the other half received only text.  

The educational video enabled a learning experience that was easily accessible and familiar, concluding with a URL for members to learn more about scheduling the eye exam. Humana saw a remarkable 270% increase in clicks to schedule an exam when outreach included the streaming video. The test demonstrates that using streaming health content alongside two-way conversational solutions can significantly help activate hard-to-reach members with diabetes.

Notable Outcome 
270% increase in clicks to schedule a diabetic eye exam when outreach included 30-second streaming video

Most Significant Outcome (tie)

 
A Technology-Enabled Pharmacy Services Company
 
 
Program Goal 
Improve member experience and pharmacy engagement

The leading PBM and pharmacy services company is nationally recognized and fills over 1 billion prescriptions annually for millions of healthcare consumers across the country. With a rapidly growing population, the healthcare leader sought a solution to improve pharmacy patient engagement by utilizing a new communication channel for its home delivery pharmacy and prior authorization programs. 

The pharmacy leader partnered with mPulse to roll out more than 50 outbound-dialer Interactive Voice Response (IVR) campaigns. The IVR messages notified members about prior authorization approvals/denials, refill reminders, shipping details and doctor responses.  

Ultimately, over 5.8 million IVR records were exchanged and the outbound dialer launched over 5.1 million total calls. By offering a new avenue for members to complete a healthy action like ordering medications, the pharmacy enterprise initiated meaningful conversations to help enhance member experience, improve self-service capabilities, and close pharmacy engagement gaps.

Notable Outcome 
Reached over 2.2 million members with 55,000+ members giving SMS consent

Most Significant Outcome (tie)

 
 
Program Goal 
Improve refill adherence for HIV patients 

MetroPlus Health Plan is a subsidiary of NYC Health & Hospitals, the largest municipal health system in the country. The insurance organization serves a diverse group of over 600,000 New York residents across Medicaid Managed Care, Medicare, D-SNP, MLTC and more plan types. A big challenge for the plan was getting HIV patients to refill medications that are pivotal to managing their condition and avoiding complications.

MetroPlus partnered with mPulse to educate the vulnerable population through interactive text messaging about the importance of medication adherence and reducing their  unmedicated days. Texts were delivered one week apart and provided members with vital resources like phone numbers of a pharmacy or a member of the HIV care team.

The plan measured results based on whether or not a patient completed a refill within 7 days of initial outreach. The program yielded a 69% improvement in medication refills when SMS text reminders were deployed, indicating that text nudges inspire self-efficacy and action within this vulnerable population. Through targeted, mobile intervention, MetroPlus helped positively impact medication adherence for over 1,000 patients living with HIV.

Notable Outcome 
69% improvement in medication refills with mPulse text reminders

Health Challenges in 2023

The 6 winners of this year’s Activate Awards showed that even when a new barrier is identified with engaging a population, healthcare organizations must adapt to adhere to their consumers’ needs. Whether utilizing a new communication channel, adding streaming video or incorporating multiple languages, the awards demonstrate that providing healthcare consumers with tailored, learning experiences can significantly impact how they engage with a program. 

As the needs and preferences of healthcare consumers continue to evolve, so too should the capabilities of the healthcare organizations that serve them. Next year’s awards ceremony will surely exhibit a new string of engagement challenges with complex populations and niche use cases – let’s see what type of healthcare innovation surfaces in 2023! 

D-SNP Spotlight, Part 2: Engagement Opportunities within the 2023 Ruling

Posted on by Andrea Amelse

The CY 2023 Medicare Advantage and Part D Final Rule places a magnifying glass on vulnerable D-SNP members with additional regulations that will require plans to integrate services, adopt new products designed to deepen engagement, drive growth and retention, and inspire meaningful behavior change. Plans must consider these new guidelines when designing their D-SNP engagement programs. Visit Part 1, D-SNP Spotlight: Engagement Opportunities within the 2023 Ruling, to read a summary of the ruling and related changes to D-SNP regulations.

Why D-SNP? 

D-SNP members offer plans a unique engagement challenge, particularly due to their hard-to-reach reputation and growth potential. There are roughly 4 million D-SNP members nationwide, with 7 million additional individuals remaining eligible. This rapidly expanding population saw a growth increase of 52% since 2018, with an increase of 16.4% in 2021 alone. 

This fast-growing member population qualifies for both Medicaid and Medicare due to their complex needs and requirements. D-SNP members often have a disabling condition, suffer from mental health disorders, receive care from multiple doctors for a variety of health conditions, and/or receive in-home care or other specialized health and social service care. D-SNP members also have access to additional benefits which often include dental care, discounted over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, hearing exams, annual eye exams, and no-cost transportation to health care visits.  

Despite their complex needs, D-SNP members open the door to several opportunities due to the requirements in place that enforce plan coordination and whole person care engagement models. Here are a few opportunities to consider.

Opportunities to Engage and Drive Outcomes  

Cut Through the Competition 

Creating meaningful relationships is the key to retaining members, and the stakes are high when it comes to D-SNP. To retain members, each individual needs to feel seen and addressed. Scaling communications across an entire population is no small feat, particularly when each member has their own unique needs and challenges. 

Personalized omnichannel messaging is essential to creating a valuable experience and allows for resources and services to be delivered on a case-by-case basis through each member’s preferred channel of communication. Conversational AI allows messaging to remain dynamic, while Natural Language Understanding (NLU) analyzes each response. mPulse Mobile uses a combination of industry, public and private data sets combined with plan data to create highly accurate predictions, and continually optimizes dialogs using conversational insights. By sending the right message at key moments, and providing resources and information each member needs most, we can begin building meaningful relationships that reduce churn. 

Break Down the Barriers 

Reaching and getting D-SNP members to engage is a great start, but instilling behavior change and self-efficacy to create action? Definitely a challenge – particularly when we consider the unique needs D-SNP members face. Members face a combination of mental health and physical health challenges, which can include ailments such as substance abuse and comorbidities. They often receive in-home care, reside in long-term care facilities, or have designated caregivers. These situations can create even more barriers to engaging and activating D-SNP members. Despite obstacles, providing relevant and critical care information and resources, particularly benefits they may not be aware they have access to, through their preferred communication channel is a great first step. But how do we create meaningful behavior change? 

We can begin building health literacy by providing powerful media experiences that include interactive and educational modalities. mPulse Mobile offers streaming health education across a variety of health topics. All content is designed by our team of production designers and learning strategists, with the goal to build skills that empower members to own their health and adopt healthier behaviors over time. Not only do we design for health literacy, we design for entertainment and boast a 71% member self-reported likelihood to take action after engaging with our streaming content.  

Drive Value Again and Again 

D-SNP members offer plans tons of flexibility. Because Medicare and Medicaid benefits are tied into a single member, premium dollars increase and open the door to curating much-needed exceptional member experiences. Allowing plan resources and benefits to reach, engage and educate this rapidly growing and vulnerable population is crucial. To attain and retain the market share, developing partnerships with organizations designed to drive repeated value is key. Understanding your member’s needs, using behavioral and learning science to engage and educate them, and driving action at key moments increases member retention, and delivers better health outcomes. 

How mPulse drove a 58% D-SNP Engagement Rate 

mPulse partnered with a national payer who serves over 17 million members nationwide, with D-SNP member eligibility available in 28 states.  

Goals 

The program focuses on welcoming new D-SNP members to the plan, with an emphasis on increasing awareness and utilization of available benefits and services. By providing a white glove experience, the plan aimed to increase retention of D-SNP members and create meaningful relationships with these members at scale. Additional goals included HRA completion. 

Execution 

Over the course of three weeks, more than 45,000 D-SNP members were enrolled into a 3-week SMS program. Each week promoted a different service offering, including healthy food card and over-the-counter pharmaceutical discounts, as well as assistance in finding a provider and ensuring members received their ID cards.  

Results 

SMS text messages saw a 99% delivery rate with 58% engagement. More than 30% of engagement included link clicks to related plan benefit offerings, which included over-the-counter pharmaceutical discount cards, healthy food cards, and provide finder links.

What’s next?  

By understanding how to reach members with complex needs, plans can cut through the competition and provide unrivaled experiences for D-SNP members. mPulse Mobile is the leader in Conversational AI solutions for the healthcare industry and operates to continually drive outcomes using tailored and engaging digital experiences. Our rich understanding of diverse populations enables our team of behavioral and learning scientists to curate highly tailored programs designed to impact the lives served by our 180+ client roster.

Activating Healthcare Consumer Behavior Change: Make it Personal

Posted on by Gabe Kratzer

Key takeaways from our interview with Solome Tibebu

In the last decade, behavioral health has grown from an ancillary service offering to a critical component of health services and care delivery. According to an OPEN MINDS Market Intelligence Report, spending on mental health services totaled $225 billion in 2019, up 52% from 2009. Companies like Talkspace and BetterHelp, founded in 2012 and 2013, recognized this spike and made it their mission to increase the availability and accessibility of mental health services to those struggling to access and navigate care. Behavioral health has continued to evolve, and it is incumbent on all healthcare organizations to adopt new methods of providing care to vulnerable populations. Learning from innovative companies and forward-thinking leaders is vital to building an effective care strategy for the one in five U.S. adults living with a mental illness.  

mPulse sat down with Solome Tibebu, a pioneer in behavioral health technology and innovation, whose passion stems from the care gaps that have existed and still remain in mental healthcare. At the early age of 16 years old, Tibebu started a non-profit online resource, Anxiety in Teens, to offer education and support for teens and young adults who were struggling with anxiety and depression. After ten years, she began working in startups and consulting, continuing to advocate for the role of technology in advancing behavioral healthcare. 

This year in June, Tibebu will be putting on her third annual Going Digital: Behavioral Health Tech summit, a conference where health plans, providers, health systems, employers, investors and startups convene to discuss the evolving landscape of behavioral health. The virtual (for now) event is a great opportunity to share best practices for implementing digital resources and innovative technologies to improve access to mental health services. We are proud to be a sponsor for the second consecutive year, and we look forward to contributing to discussions around how healthcare organizations can implement solutions to tackle barriers and make mental healthcare more accessible for all.

Improving Access through Technology Innovation

COVID-19 created an array of challenges to advancing mental health access, but it also sparked a digital transformation that brought innovation to the center stage. With more consumers staying home, “tech has exploded as a response to the pandemic,” Tibebu prefaces. Technology plays an important role in understanding and addressing the social dynamics that affect each person living with mental illness. Some of the challenges that plague mental health accessibility require more than simple one-way consumer interactions, however. 

Talking about health plans, Tibebu emphasizes, “stigma is a huge barrier even after they’ve procured some kind of solution, so they need to have a strategy around how they’re gonna address stigma, and engagement of the member.” Stigma can produce feelings of worthlessness and lead to social isolation while social determinants of health (SDOH) like transportation access or income level can prevent consumers from seeking care. To tackle barriers like SDOH and stigma, it is necessary to utilize technology to understand consumer needs and preferences. 

Conversational AI and Natural Language Understanding power the capability to deploy behavioral science strategies at scale when communicating with vulnerable populations. For instance, incorporating a strategy like Affect ensures that messaging is based in empathy, increasing motivation to engage with sensitive healthcare outreach. Social Proof is an effective strategy that helps assure consumers that they are not alone and can help reduce social isolation caused by mental health stigma.  

Applying behavioral science and identifying SDOH in conversational outreach enables a deeper understanding of consumers. Once individual preferences are captured, healthcare organizations can efficiently tailor relevant content to each consumer and activate meaningful behavior change. 

Delivering Tailored Content at Scale

Incorporating clinically validated behavior change techniques helps with understanding the needs and preferences of consumers. Tibebu asks, “now all of these payers have implemented their telehealth solution but it’s the next level – how do we get something more customized, personalized to their respective populations?”  

Plans and providers can drive deeper engagement and self-efficacy by adopting tailored engagement strategies that lift utilization of the programs they’ve invested in. Conversational AI enables the orchestration of programs and resource delivery across preferred consumer channels. Natural Language Understanding helps capture important data from consumer responses to help route them to the appropriate digital resource. 

A one-size-fits-all care model fails to meet the needs of each consumer, while customization empowers healthcare organizations to intervene with meaningful content that drives behavior change. “How can you identify the consumer’s need and triage them to the right end solution?” Tibebu reiterates. Certain individuals who prefer a visual learning experience may benefit from a course like Living with Anxiety & Depression, while those who respond better to audio can be directed to a podcast like Mental Health Matters. 

Providing on-demand, curated content can motivate consumers to take control of their health and execute healthier behaviors, leading to improved outcomes and a better consumer experience.

Impacting Beyond Mental Health

We asked Tibebu why personalization in mental healthcare should be important to payers specifically. She responded, “because mental health is at the vortex of all health…for all of these other conditions, expensive conditions, that are impacted as a result of poor mental health.” Consumers who are negatively affected by mental health are more likely to develop chronic conditions, which piles up costs for both the consumer and the organization providing services. This creates an opportunity for plans and providers to adopt innovative solutions that promote well-being through tailored engagement. 

MagellanRx Management serves a complex population and recognized the need to incorporate well-being content for their members who were experiencing loneliness and anxiety from COVID-19. They partnered with mPulse to deploy digital fotonovelas, which use culturally sensitive stories in a comic-strip format to improve health education and activate diverse populations. The program drove impressive outcomes, yielding over a 38% engagement rate and a 90% member satisfaction score. 

We questioned how organizations outside of payers and providers can “step up” to make mental healthcare more accessible. Walmart Wellness is a nationally recognized brand whose goal is to “help customers raise their hand and more easily access their hubs,” Tibebu clarifies. Walmart partnered with mPulse to implement SMS solutions along with streaming health education to drive their customers to the right well-being resources. The program included custom learning plans across several wellness topics and produced significant improvements in customer engagement. 

After chatting with Tibebu, we are reassured that mental healthcare should be the focal point of an effective engagement strategy. Innovative companies can promote mental well-being and health literacy by leveraging technology that personalizes outreach. Educating consumers with tailored content through timely and convenient engagement builds self-efficacy and lasting behavior change.

Learn more about Conversational AI and streaming health education here. 

 

CareSource Activates Hard-to-Reach Members with Conversational Outreach and Streaming Content

Posted on by Gabe Kratzer

COVID-19 Accelerating Digital Engagement

It is no secret that COVID-19 has changed the way healthcare communication is delivered to consumers. The uncertain nature of the pandemic has forced healthcare organizations to incorporate digital strategies to continuously update their members on important COVID-19 information. Just this year, health plans have had to respond to the new mandate requiring reimbursements for at-home COVID-19 tests.  

Gaps remain in other facets of COVID-19 communication, like driving behavior change to increase vaccinations. Across the country, states are seeing lower vaccination rates among Medicaid beneficiaries. In California, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) released a January 2022 report indicating that 81% of the general population had received one dose of a COVID vaccine compared to only 54% of Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) beneficiaries. Significant disparities in vaccination completion such has this have developed in states beyond California as well. 

CareSource, an Ohio-based managed care plan offering insurance coverage to vulnerable populations across five states, recognized a similar disparity in their diverse member population and sought a solution. Traditional methods of engaging members had failed to produce desired results, creating an opportunity to incorporate a new approach in their outreach efforts. The plan partnered with us to implement conversational outreach and streaming health education into their COVID-19 vaccine program strategy.  

Here’s some key takeaways from the program along with strategies that health plans can adopt to drive vaccine engagement.  

Strategies That Personalize Outreach

Delivering vital information about vaccines becomes more difficult when using a one-size-fits-all approach to communicating with vulnerable members. A successful COVID-19 outreach program requires personalized interactions with members to inspire healthier actions. CareSource identified a need to activate hard-to-reach consumers and sought a tool to tailor engagement based of range of factors including health beliefs. 

The plan leveraged our robust technology platform and Natural Language Understanding capabilities, which enabled tailored engagement through 25 SMS workflows, 1 Secure Survey, and 1 streaming video.  

We helped deploy SMS surveys to assess individual vaccine readiness levels, and members were assigned one of three personas based on their responses: Ready, Unsure, and Nonbeliever. Developing personas enables plans to tailor messaging according to personalized interactions with members to inspire healthier actions each member’s preferences and self-reported barriers. Messaging must be intentional and sensitive to inspire paradigm shifts for unvaccinated members or members who have no plans to get vaccinated.

Behavior science informs every communication we send, and this program was no different. An effective behavioral science strategy in the CareSource program was giving members Social Proof, which comes from the Social Determination Theory and suggests that people are motivated by feelings of competence and relatedness. Through the texting channel, members were sent a streaming video, “My Why,” which highlights a diverse range of people explaining their personal reasons for getting vaccinated. Plans can inspire confidence and healthier actions just by making members feel as though they are not alone.

Another behavior science strategy employed in the program was Authority, which is using trusted health experts to improve education, drive health literacy and reduce barriers like misinformation. Using sources like the CDC can ease doubt and motivate members to reconsider personal health beliefs that may contribute to vaccine hesitancy.   

CareSource provided zip code data, which we used to further tailor conversations based on socioeconomic factors. Providing members with personalized, familiar interactions gives the member a voice and drives self-efficacy. 

By incorporating behavioral science and SDOH into their COVID-19 engagement strategy, CareSource was able to tailor conversations and streaming educational content at scale. Social determinants of health (SDOH) can play an integral role in tailoring messaging to each individual inspiring vaccine readiness. 

Innovation That Drives Outcomes

We sent a total of 4 million SMS messages and delivered over 3 million automated dialogues to 664,000 members. The program yielded nearly a 15% engagement rate, an increase from traditional rates of 8-10%. Of the members who received a first dose, 81% reported they would follow through to get a second dose. By the end of the program, 57,000 of the 107,000 “Unsure” members moved into the “Ready” persona. 

Each member response led to additional tailoring, with automated responses covering topics like variants, availability, cost, fear/anxiety, effectiveness, and side effects. Upon conducting 30-day and 90-day reviews of the program, common themes were uncovered within each member persona. Gathering insights from member interactions can help influence future vaccine engagement programs and ensure that each conversation is tailored to drive the best results. 

As companies focus on highly tailored engagement, scalable intelligent capabilities are required.  CareSource has demonstrated the potential for Conversational AI outreach and streaming health education to drive healthier actions and meaningful outcomes.