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Category: Social Determinants of Health

How to Overcome Flu Vaccination Inequities This Flu Season

Posted on by Andrea Amelse

Flu vaccines prevent nearly 7.5 million illnesses, 3.7 million doctor visits, 105,000 hospitalizations, and 6,300 deaths annually. For the 2022-23 flu season, 173.37 million Americans received the flu vaccine, with an average savings of $13.66 per vaccine, meaning nearly $2.4 billion was saved from flu vaccinations last season. Conversely, 46% of eligible Americans weren’t vaccinated. Understanding who isn’t getting their flu vaccine and why are fundamental to improve vaccination rates for the 2023-24 season.

When taking a closer look at the 46% of Americans not getting vaccinated, Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) factors such as age, race, and income become evident. Less than 43% of Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/ Alaskan Native adults were vaccinated during the 2021-22 flu season. Flu hospitalization rates were nearly 80% higher among Black adults than White adults from 2009-2022. Adults with incomes less than $35,000 annually had 21% decreased odds of receiving the flu vaccine. Additionally, people aged 18-49 years are nearly 37% less likely to get vaccinated than those aged 65 and older. Understanding why these inequities exist is crucial when designing programs to help overcome them.

Designing Flu Outreach for All

According to a report from the CDC, some of the leading reasons for flu vaccine inequities include lack of accessibility, misinformation, and distrust of the medical system as a whole. Program design that directly targets overcoming these barriers is essential in improving vaccination rates across member populations.  

Lack of Accessibility 

The structures and solutions put in place today primarily serve those who have the upper hand. Many members face accessibility barriers including lack of reliable transportation, disabilities that inhibit access, lack of internet, inflexible work schedules, and language and translation barriers, to name a few. Through no fault of their own, the ability for members facing these challenges to receive vaccinations is nearly impossible due to systems that haven’t been designed in consideration of diverse needs and preferences.

The good news is that health plans can play a huge role in overcoming these barriers. By deploying programs designed with accessibility at the forefront, plans can identify individual barriers, and deliver tailored resources to create access. This begins with a solid understanding of the target audience.

mPulse leverages a combination of both internal and external data sets, which enables a holistic view of member insights and gives plans the ability to craft the most relevant digital touchpoints. By connecting with members through their preferred communication channel, whether it be SMS, email, or IVR, plans can quickly and efficiently identify and overcome individual barriers. With the right message, sent through the right channel, in the right language, with the right resource, plans can begin meeting members where they are to improve flu vaccination rates.

Watch our on-demand webinar to Double Flu Vaccination Rates for Your Health Population »

Misinformation and Knowledge Gaps

While the internet and social networking platforms are a great way to discover and share news and information, they aren’t always reliable. Post-pandemic, perceptions about vaccinations and flu have garnered even more skepticism. It’s more important now than ever to provide members with reliable and relevant information about vaccines.  

By borrowing inspiration from preferred methods of content consumption, i.e. popular social platforms, mPulse educates members in a frictionless, relatable format. Short-form content that is both entertaining and educational is a great way to provide relevant information. In addition to ensuring the content is frictionless and engaging, we also ensure its accessible. Relatable characters that portray diverse populations, and multilingual capabilities are essential to resonating with broader member groups and gaining credibility. Content is sent through each member’s preferred communication channel, making it easy to receive the information they need.

Like the fotonovelas? View another one included in the mPulse Mobile Flu Vaccination Solution here »

Distrust

Lack of representation in the medical field, in addition to a longstanding history of structural racism and discrimination contribute to the lack of trust many members have toward the medical system. While health plans are a small piece of this larger puzzle, gaining the trust of the members they serve is imperative. Leaning on digital trends for inspiration and support in building trust can allow plans to scale effectively.  

Several positive and meaningful touchpoints over time helps create and sustain member relationships. mPulse works with health plans to deliver empathic messaging that includes relevant and accessible information in each member’s preferred language, through the right channel. When members feel they can rely on their health plan for the care and resources they need most, they’re more likely to trust their plan and feel empowered to act. Simply informing a member they are due for a flu vaccine may come across as abrasive. Our sensitive, culturally relevant messaging incorporates behavioral science techniques, cinematic educational content, and tailored resources, letting the member know their plan understands their needs, and cares about their health. When members feel valued, they’re more likely to trust their plan, and adopt healthier behaviors.

In Conclusion 

Technology has an imperative role in helping overcome health disparities and barriers to flu vaccinations. By leveraging innovative digital trends designed to serve vulnerable populations, health plans can begin broadening accessibility, educating and empowering members, and building trust at scale to improve vaccination rates and inspire healthier outcomes for the populations they serve.

mPulse Mobile designs solutions that identify and overcome barriers to action. Our behavior change model incorporates health equity, behavioral science, and instructional strategy to deliver best-in-class outcomes. To learn more about how our flu vaccination solution can help overcome vaccine hesitancy for your members, contact us.

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.

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. 

 

Overcoming Member Barriers to Breast Cancer Screenings 

Posted on by Andrea Amelse

1 in 8 women in the United States will get diagnosed with Breast Cancer in her lifetime. This means that every two minutes, someone in the U.S. is newly diagnosed. When detected early, the 5-year survival rate is 99%, but advanced stage breast cancer can be fatal. Early detection through annual mammograms can help treat breast cancer before it progresses, significantly improving outcomes and saving lives. 

Women in their 50s through 70s are at a heightened risk for breast cancer, and doctors recommend annual screenings for women in this age bracket. Unfortunately, only 35% of women 40 and older are attending their annual breast cancer screening. While an annual mammogram may seem simple, it’s easy to overlook if you’re too busy or don’t feel like you need it. Proactively reaching out to members due for screenings and educating them on the importance of preventive care is critical to ensuring they receive the best outcomes and care.  

Challenge

One of the most difficult challenges is reaching members and meeting them where they are. mPulse mobile uses an omnichannel approach while analyzing your unique population’s preferences to deliver communication through the channel that will resonate most. Aligning your communication models to meet the preferences of your members will allow for a frictionless engagement approach that will yield the best possible outcomes.  

The second critical challenge is identifying each of your members barriers and providing them with tailored dialogue and education. Using Natural Language Understanding and conversational AI to provide tailored responses to each member and continually creating personalized touch-points creates relationships and trust with your members which will enhance retention and loyalty. 

When we apply these solutions to overcome barriers to breast cancer screenings, we’re able to not only reach members, but engage them and provide them with the relevant resources and education that result in better outcomes. 

Case Study: Breast Cancer Screening Barrier Identification 

Anonymized MCO Health Plan 

Program Goal: Identify and address barriers to breast cancer screening 

Program Execution: Through tailored SMS messaging, mPulse delivered dialogue to members who hadn’t scheduled their annual mammogram. Individual responses were analyzed through Natural Language Understanding and sent automated replies that had been designed by our team of behavioral data scientists and strategists. 

Our Behavioral Science team crafts dialogues by pulling research that studies population demographics, belief systems, health attitudes, and more. Leveraging this data allows our communication to resonate with your unique population, build health literacy and inspirer behavior change through personalization. 

See below for example dialogues to unique responses. 

*Please note, these are example dialogues created for the purpose of this blog. 

By analyzing member response data, plans can begin implementing the resources and education needed to further help members overcome barriers. For this use case, we were able to identify the largest barriers based on responses for their member population. See below for most frequent barriers gathered from response data. 

Barriers

Gathering insights and data from your broader population helps inform a long-term strategy and allows a broader understanding of your populations needs.  

Supporting barrier identification by providing relevant information and additional CTAs will continue to reinforce healthy behaviors throughout the member journey, while reinforcing self-efficacy. 

The Big Know by mPulse Mobile

The Big Know is mPulse Mobile’s streaming health education capability. Our team of instructional writers and designers produce broadcast-quality content designed to inspire health literacy at scale. We leverage the expertise of popular health experts to teach video and podcast learning experiences that are proven to engage and entertain your members. For one of our leading health plan clients, our average engagement time was 52 minutes per member.

Our streaming content includes a combination of video, animation, polls, quizzes, interactive modules, and embedded links to your related programs and resources. We average a 51% click-through to in-lesson client related programs.

Our breast cancer screening course is taught by Archelle Georgiou, MD, a leading physician, business executive, advisor, author, and speaker.  

 Lesson Title: Get Screened for Breast Cancer 

Lesson Description: Every person with breasts needs to know the facts about breast cancer and their risk for it. The recommendations for breast cancer screening can be confusing. This lesson helps you make sense of them and make your plan to get screened.  

Watch a short video from the breast cancer screening lesson: 

Click here to watch the full course. 

At mPulse Mobile, we leverage omnichannel conversational AI and streaming health education to inspire healthier populations while lowering costs to serve. Through personalized member journeys, we help build relationships that uncover barriers and facilitate healthier behavior change at scale.  

 To learn more about mPulse Mobile’s solutions and programs, contact us.

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Leveraging Technology to Meaningfully Impact the Member Journey: Key Takeaways

Posted on by Nora Cristobal

On March 23rd, we had the opportunity to sit down with one of our Medicaid partners, Peach State Health, at Whole Person Care for Medicare, Medicaid and Duals. In this discussion, we talked through the member journey and the impact tech and data can have on the holistic approach to population health. Here are our key takeaways: 

Establishing Trust In the Member Journey

Sheakeena Lamb opened the session with Peach State Health Plan’s focus group findings that spurred the need to engage their members in a meaningful way that made sense to each unique member and their preferred channel of communication. In order to overcome health barriers, you first must be able to reach the member. From there, health plans can outreach effectively with the appropriate resources needed to inspire healthy behavior change. Connecting with the member in a way that saves both the organization, and the member time and resources helps develop a trusting relationship. Having meaningful connections is what will encourage the member to see their health plan as more than just a payer and more like a trusted partner — a valuable source to discover key information they need to take control of their health management and live a healthier life throughout their health journey.

Challenge the Unknown and learn from Past Use Cases:

Peach State learned very early on they needed to refocus their outreach efforts to meet their members in the channels they said worked best for them. For Peach State, that was text messaging over mailers and IVR. Their member population simply did not have the time to pick up the phone during workdays and did not trust unknown callers.  And as many organizations know, mailers can be costly and time consuming. After deploying SMS well-child reminders, Peach State saw 170k unique members engage with their messages. Outreach through a trusted channel like text can also overcome the unknown caller barrier – we are all hesitent to answer when receiving a call from an unknown number. If the member is not aware their health plan is calling because they do not trust “unknown callers,” then the opportunity to engage is completely missed.

Member preferences matter:

Understanding the member journey is one step of a successful engagement solution. Understanding how and when to engage members, and then using in-channel communication to reach them in the language they prefer, at the time that is right for them, is what elevates a good strategy to a successful ROI engagement solution. mPulse has seen this time and time again when deploying bi-directional communication solutions for our clients. Engagement increases when members feel like their provider or plan are able to engage with a natural language understanding. And when the organization can  scale that communication with an automated solution, it becomes cost saving too. It enables plans to get  closer to the triple-aim and deploy efficiently at scale, reduce resources and increase trust between the member-plan relationship.

Data’s impact on future member engagement strategies:

Valuable data like member preferences, SDoH information, and experiental data can and should, affect a plan’s member outreach strategy. By employing a deep understanding of the member population, you are able to build better lines of effective communication and help your members navigate their individual health journeys. Working with the correct reporting tools and solution partner, can uncover communication barriers the plan may not have known posed an immediate issue. “If we can figure out where the barriers are for our members then we can address them early instead of falling behind,” said Sheakeena Lamb. With data on measure eligibilities and having visibility of a large part of a member population, plans can catch members that could develop care gaps, and use this data to drive quality improvement strategies.

Going Beyond traditional touchpoints:

After the data is collected, and the reports have been pulled, comes the need to reimagine an outreach strategy that works for each individual member. Using the right tools to send text messages in members preferred language, or at their preferred time impacts the level of engagement and provides a meaningful facet to the holistic health journey. And the right tools can store that information for later use when tailoring downstream conversations. Not only being able to respond with the appropriate information and connect members to plan or provider resources but to be able to remember important preferences can establish health plans as more than just a payer, more than just a resource, but as a invaulable healthcare partner.

Digital Fotonovelas for Flu Engagement: A New Approach for a Unique Year

Posted on by Nora Cristobal

The 2020-21 flu season poses new challenges in addressing COVID-19 alongside traditional challenges driving flu vaccination. Flu season for most adults typically begins around November and plans push reminders to have members schedule their flu vaccination. However, with COVID-19 as an ongoing concern, healthcare experts are suggesting getting the flu shot as early as September 2020, to at least quell the brunt of one virus while trying to manage the other. In addition, members who take precautionary measures early-on will alleviate pressure on hospital systems that have been carrying the weight of COVID-19.

Organizations must enhance their flu engagement strategies to address new concerns and barriers to vaccination this year and educate members quickly on new topics. With the right tools, health plans can take a multi-angled approach to member outreach that will help address and overcome several barriers at once. mPulse has been working with our customers to roll out new content and technology to help handle the challenges of this flu season—read about our 2020-2021 Flu Engagement Solution here. The solution incorporates digital fotonovelas. These are typically a 6-frame comic-style story portrayed with lighthearted graphics, that deliver important content to across demographic segments at scale. The story-style graphic can deliver vital educational flu resources directly to members’ mobile devices, through SMS and link-to-web, using members’ preferred language. This tool has been used in key healthcare use cases in the past, (e.g., value of HPV vaccines and diabetes self-management) and has proven to be a complementary route of communication when utilized with a text messaging approach to member outreach.

mPulse Mobile first deployed fotonovelas as a bi-lingual visual tool during the onset of COVID-19 as a part of the COVID-19 Rapid Rollout Toolkit solutions. The goal was to adapt a traditional and effective style of print media into digital format delivered through SMS, to help overcome health literacy barriers during a time when the spread of healthcare information was urgent and needed to be disseminated quickly at scale. The 6-frame graphic style of communication, paired with a series of check-ins via SMS, helped our plan and provider partners build health literacy around social distancing, basic hand hygiene, and keeps multi-lingual populations informed with accessible and coordinated outreach via mobile channels. The goal of this capability was to successfully assess members’ health risk and respond through text dialogue and educational fotonovelas appropriate for each member’s situation, in their preferred language. We’ve seen that when matched with strategic member outreach, fotonovelas can be a tool that offers an access point to fill in gaps in knowledge that drive healthy behavioral change even during a time when many are hesitant to seek out healthcare in person.

Fotonovelas also present an opportunity to address individual-level barriers and inaccurate health beliefs related to COVID-19, and flu vaccines in general. They can help address education gaps surrounding available flu vaccination resources during the pandemic while promoting health literacy. Paired with text message dialogues, plans and providers are able to uncover new barriers that may have prevented members to seek flu vaccinations early and match members to follow up content, including fotonovelas, that addresses those specific challenges.

During the 2019-2020 flu season, mPulse powered over 15,000,000 flu vaccination touchpoints across Medicaid, Medicare and commercial plan populations. The solution achieved a 2x increase in recorded flu vaccination rates in a large Medicaid population*. This year, as the flu season approaches with the added layer of COVID-19, plans and providers will need to more agile and responsive than years before.

For that reason, fotonovelas have become one of the core capabilities in our Flu Vaccination Solution for 2020-21. Fotonovelas engage a range of core population groups, including key multicultural segments with configurable content and versioning that enables matching to specific personas and demographics that can be updated over time. They can be a touchpoint that alerts members of appointment reminders, vaccination site locations and educational services. But the most powerful aspect of this form of outreach is the ability to tailor content based on an understanding of members health beliefs, in members’ preferred language and through their preferred channel. By listening to member responses to automated text conversations and understanding what they need to hear in order to get vaccinated, health care organizations can gather insights and deliver tailored and engaging outreach at scale. Because the solution is available on SMS and Link-to-Web it has the ability to reach a wider population at scale, meeting members where they are, taking pressure off of the member to seek out information during the height of the pandemic and flu season.

In a year of “unprecedented situations” the 2020-21 flu season is yet another that will require healthcare to evolve its approach. The reach, engagement and rich content provided by our fotonovelas strategy is a natural fit for the unique challenges of this flu season. Healthcare organizations know they have to do more this year than a strategy of 1-way reminder outreach and reliance on employer, church, or school vaccination drives. By creating conversational touchpoints around flu vaccination and supporting members with differentiated and rich content, they can elevate their engagement strategy to support the populations they care for.

New Study Analyzes Impact of Social Determinants of Health and Conversational AI on Medicare Medication Refill Adherence

Posted on by mPulse Team

LOS ANGELES – December 2019 – mPulse Mobile, the leader in Conversational AI solutions for health activation, announces the results of a two year study that assessed the influence of social determinants of health (SDOH) on the prescription refill rates of Medicare (Part D) patients and the benefits of Conversational AI text messaging solutions. The study analyzes a large cross-sectional dataset with results from over 99,000 patients and over 270,000 refill reminders across a 2-year period.

Social determinants are linked to non-adherence. Challenges such as financial stress and limited transportation options can impact an individual’s ability to get the prescriptions they need. These influences are commonly not shared with physicians and care teams, so they can’t provide patients with help and additional support services. This study shows that patients with low SDOH impact are more likely to request a refill than those with high SDOH impact.

The study used an SDOH Index, developed by mPulse Mobile, which quantifies SDOH impacts at a census tract level as well as a predictive model that can identify patients least likely to engage with the text messaging solution. Automated text conversations in Spanish and English were initiated with patients to allow them to refill their prescriptions conveniently. Once members impacted by SDOH barriers engaged with the conversational text message, they refilled at equivalent rates to those with lower SDOH barriers.

“Understanding health needs and challenges on both the individual and community levels is crucial to understanding and appropriately addressing them,” said Chris Nicholson Co-Founder and CEO of mPulse Mobile. “Our Behavioral Data Science team identified the opportunity to model the impact of SDOH on refill adherence, and the results demonstrate how programs and services can be better targeted to deliver the greatest impact.”

The study measured refill-rates in partially adherent and nonadherent Kaiser Permanente member populations. The results confirmed previously published pilot results but addressed a much larger population and leveraged mPulse’s multicultural Conversational AI capabilities to deliver text messages to Spanish speakers.

“We continue to include more elements to address the cultural linguistic and SDOH-related impacts reported in this study, so that more patients can benefit from our solution” said the paper’s corresponding author, Rena Brar Prayaga, Director of Behavioral Data Science at mPulse Mobile.

For this program, Conversational AI was used to automate conversations in both English and Spanish that helped members review and confirm their prescriptions and asked members about barriers they were facing to direct them to appropriate support services. Over the study period, 307,484 responses were received from members, and over 92% of these messages were successfully understood and handled by Conversational AI. The ability for automation to manage replies from members significantly reduced the demand on pharmacy staff resources, enabling staff to focus on higher level tasks and more complex patient needs.

The full study, “Impact of Social Determinants of Health and Demographics on Refill Requests by Medicare Patients Using a Conversational AI Text Messaging Solution: Cross-Sectional Study” can be found at https://go.mpulsemobile.com/case-study-jmir-kp-sdoh. Authors of the study are Erwin Jeong and Harmony Noble from Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Rena Brar Prayaga, Andrew Paster and Ram Prayaga from mPulse Mobile, and Ridhika Agrawal and Benjamin Nguyen from mPulse Mobile and Grinnell College.