Part 1 – A New Look at the Engagement Challenge
– David Baum, Director of Communications, BioIQ –
For years, getting people engaged was the leading challenge in population health programs. Today, with the growing awareness about the importance of tracking and measuring our health, engagement is not the hurdle that it used to be. An even greater challenge involves properly managing the data from these programs. In order to improve health outcomes and lower costs, you not only need participation, but action. That means being able to easily create and share electronic health records as people embrace population health programs and move through the healthcare system.
However, managing health and wellness data is more difficult than it sounds – particularly when multiple entities are involved. According to a Health Data Management survey conducted among 68 accountable care organizations (ACOs), obtaining outside data and integrating it into internal information systems remains a major hurdle. ACOs are starting to get a handle on some of their internal interoperability issues – but connecting with external systems, providers and organizations presents unique difficulties.
Within the all-important realm of health measurement, BioIQ has created a technology platform that resolves these interoperability issues. Thousands of labs and pharmacies, in conjunction with many of the world’s largest health plans, depend on this platform to sign up participants, connect them to health measurement solutions, integrate lab results, track wellness rewards/incentives, and display results through personal health dashboards, securely accessible via computers and mobile devices. BioIQ brokers the health measurement experience and securely exchanges the resulting data among authorized stakeholders, both at the individual and population levels.
Tracking these health metrics over time becomes the basis for achieving health improvement goals – both for individuals and for the member population. For example, individuals can access BioIQ lab reports through password-protected personal health dashboards. Individual results trigger targeted recommendations, encouraging people to participate in complementary wellness programs such as customized education curricula, health coaching, disease management, smoking cessation and diet/weight loss programs. Meanwhile, program administrators receive real-time data on overall participation and population health trends. They can utilize online dashboards to track outcomes, rewards, and incentives – all while presenting targeted options to at-risk members.
Of course, the challenge doesn’t just involve moving data. You have to move people too. Participants in population health programs must be able to successfully navigate healthcare systems and processes if they are to achieve a desired outcome. That’s why BioIQ moves the data from one system to another in tandem with the experience, guiding individuals to pertinent next steps and aggregating the results into personal and program dashboards. By connecting individuals to specific interventions based on their identified risks, people always have targeted, relevant information about how to change their behavior and improve their health.
Which brings us back to our premise. BioIQ doesn’t just see data interoperability as a technical challenge. It’s an engagement challenge as well—not just getting people involved, but keeping them accountable. Our objective is to create seamless user experiences that enable people to successfully navigate healthcare systems and processes—with data leading the way.
