In this Q&A, Revel CEO Jeff Fritz provides a preview of the session to come by discussing ways that improving patient engagement and personalizing communication can help accountable care organizations (ACOs) enhance outcomes.
How can accountable care organizations (ACOs) get people to do what is good for their health?
Most ACOs are new to engaging their member patients. They do not always have a strong, modern communication platform, so the communication happens through nurses or when the patient calls in. Our technology unlocks digital and traditional channels in an orchestrated and coordinated way to get better results. Revel helps ACOs understand people’s individual communication preferences and how to use the right mix of channels to reach them.
What empowers people?
It starts with how we communicate with them. We are all familiar with Amazon and how that retail engine “learns” what we enjoy and appreciate. The same concepts hold true for communicating with people about their healthcare, and their preferences around those touchpoints. It should not be the same message for every patient. Data analytics can help ACOs plan how each individual patient should be approached, from the actual messaging, to the channel used, to the sequence and timing of each communication.
How does your roundtable at the ACO & Payer Leadership Summit address this?
I’m excited to lead “Untapping the Real Potential of Data for Better Engagement” roundtable on Friday, April 13th at 8:45am. Our discussion will explore the massive impacts of data on digital health engagement as part of a connected health ecosystem.
We’ll discuss how healthcare organizations can successfully leverage data as the driving force behind a new, integrated healthcare paradigm resulting in better health outcomes for everyone.
What type of outreach do people respond to?
It depends on who they are. There is an increase in smart phone and internet usage, but you have to remember that 30 percent of people do not use a smart phone. We have to ensure that other methods, such as telephone and print, are effectively used to achieve the desired result.
“Revel helps ACOs understand people’s individual communication preferences and how to use the right mix of channels to reach them.”
Jeff Fritz
CEO, RevelWhat actionable insights can your platform provide? What opportunities can they present to ACOs?
ACOs can examine the social determinants and barriers that may affect the way in which people live their lives and whether they embrace healthy or unhealthy practices. This data can provide insights into how best ACOs can unlock better care for those communities. Understanding the nuances of individual patients’ preferences, and communicating and engaging with them accordingly, will drive better outcomes and savings.
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Are human-like experiences possible?
This can be difficult given the digital nature of today’s communication, but nuances in digital communication can still make it more human-like and acceptable to recipients. It is helpful to know when a message is best delivered in a certain language or gender-related syntax, for example. Newer technologies will be able to detect actual sentiments and how positive the experience has been for the individual. That can allow ACOs to adjust the message to their patients’ needs and desires.
What is the real potential here? Can you provide examples of your outreach programs and what was achieved?
The market potential is billions of dollars. For example, we are beginning a program to identify the habitual users of the ER. Many people do not know where their community primary care physician is and how to access them. They end up visiting the ER, which is significantly more expensive than going to the physician’s clinic. Once we identify these individuals, within 24-48 hours we will communicate where they can continue their care, and help establish or re-establish the relationship with their primary care physicians. This can help reduce the number of unnecessary visits to the ER.
In one flu campaign we managed, 48% of those we reached, who initially said they had no intention to get a flu shot, changed their mind about it by the end of the call. This was after providing educational content on why the shot was important.
If ACOs can motivate their elderly population to receive flu shots, they can reduce ER visits and severe cases of influenza. This obviously not only impacts the health of the overall population, it reduces costs significantly and delivers a strong return on investment. The same is possible with diabetes management, weight management, colorectal screening, and other important screening and chronic disease care programs. These are all examples of where the Revel platform can mitigate very expensive incidents of care.
To view the full article from the ACO & Payer Leadership Summit, you can find it here.
About the ACO & Payer Leadership Summit Spring 2018
The ACO & Payer Leadership Summit is the premium forum bringing senior level executives from both public and private health plans, MCOs, ACOs, and integrated health systems together with solution providers.
The summit includes presentations on addressing non-clinical barriers to care to improve community health, patient-centered benefit plan design, and utilizing data to improve engagement, experience and value-based outcomes.
