Health Plans are finding new ways to bring value to consumers by empowering them with tools and guidance to manage their health while on the go.

At many conferences, health plans present their newest mobile application or texting campaign to engage consumers.

UnitedHealth Group announced their latest move at the recent Consumer Electronics Show to integrate several mobile health applications into their OptumizeMe solution, through partnerships with CareSpeak Communications, FitNow and FitBit. UnitedHealth is integrating content and tools to bring new capabilities to both consumers and caregivers.

Through the CareSpeak Communications’ partnership, consumers sign up to receive two-way texts to help them manage their medication and condition. UnitedHealth delivers CareSpeak’s personalized messaging to provide relevant content to each consumer segment ( e.g. asthma, diabetes, cancer, etc). A patient with diabetes opts in to receive customized education and reminder messages and can give a caregiver permission to monitor her health. The patient’s clinician is also kept in the loop with medication and condition management data to discuss during patient interactions. Patients are further engaged by receiving text based educational quizzes and viewing online reporting showing their effectiveness in managing their medication and condition over time.

With the integration of FitNow’s Lose It! mobile app, consumers can better manage their weight through fitness and food tracking tools, educational nutrition information, motivational reminders and social peer support.

From the FitBit integration, consumers automatically track their physical activity instead of having to key it in. Since this activity data is no longer self reported, UnitedHealth Group can use validated information to drive their rewards program. The FitBit app also tracks the consumer’s sleeping behavior for a more complete view of their health.

Integration Delivers Insight

UnitedHealth Group has invested in this set of mobile technologies to capture and connect multiple sources of data for a holistic view covering the consumer’s physical activity, dietary behavior, medication adherence, biometric and mood information.

“With these partnerships in place, we are connecting all the pieces of data across our platform for a common view for the consumer to self manage and share with their coach while creating a personalized experience”, explains Nick Martin, VP Innovation and R&D, UnitedHealth Group.

This supports the trend for “integrated end to end health to care solutions” where technology connects with care management platforms and programs, as noted by IDC Health Insights’ analyst Janice Young.

Coach/CareGiver & Consumer Collaboration

Nick Martin describes how the OptumizeMe application is being used by the consumer with their coach.  “Let’s say you are trying to lose weight. Your coach can push messages to your mobile which are educational and supportive. And if you give your coach permission, she can see your tracked physical activity”.  Think about how much more motivated and accountable the consumer will feel when her coach is monitoring and responding to her daily progress.  On the health side, the asthma patient can give access to her caregiver to monitor and address medication compliance issues. Her caregiver can also send encouraging and educational messages between visits.

UnitedHealth’s partnerships deliver new capabilities to their OptumizeMe mobile app giving consumers a new way to remain in close contact with their coach and to self manage with the social support from caregivers. With the power of the personalized information pushed and pulled from the consumer’s mobile phone, UnitedHealth Group can successfully generate both stronger consumer engagement and better health outcomes.

While many companies are busy putting new online health resources and tools in place, Zeo is laying out the path to engage and empower consumers through social and mobile technologies and personalized information and education.

Zeo’s sleep management solution helps consumers get better sleep by providing a view into their own sleep behavior, delivering expert education and leveraging the wisdom of the crowds. Sleep is not a ‘nice to have’. Sleep is a ‘need to have’. Studies have shown the link between sleep deprivation and its impact on productivity and health problems such as obesity and high blood pressure.

How is Zeo designing their data driven path to attract and engage consumers?  

Awareness

In collaboration with Julien Smith, NY Times best seller author, Zeo has developed and distributed the “Sleep is Awesome” infographic to wake up the world to benefits of getting more sleep. The graphic is informative since it has facts about problems associated with sleep and shows how sleep varies by age group and gender.  Zeo is spreading awareness about sleep virally across personal networks through Twitter and Facebook.

Education  

Through the Zeo Product. I had an opportunity to try the Zeo sleep monitoring system. When I took the clock display out of the box, I remember thinking that I already have an alarm clock so why do I need another one?  A few days later, I could not wait to bounce out of bed and seem my ZQ score (e.g. quality and quantity of my sleep) and how long it took for me to fall asleep. After reading an article on  “7 Sleep Stealers”,  I made improvements to my sleep environment to move my ZQ score up and time to sleep down. Zeo has also built their sleep coaching platform (see the blog visual) on these 7 steps to sleep fitness and recommends personalized education based on my profile.

Through Social Community. Zeo has recently launched their community which is currently in “forum” mode.  The forum participants have a strong motivation to learn how to manage their sleep. Some are experimenting with the use of napping in place of or in addition to their current night sleep. Others are sharing strategies for maximizing their deep sleep. Zeo will be bringing in sleep experts to further educate the community.  

Through Mobile. Last Spring, Zeo launched the first version MYZeo iPhone app which displays ZQ score charts, a daily night graph and a Personal sleep trend report showing changes in sleep patterns. Zeo is planning mobile enhancements to help consumers make better lifestyle decisions throughout the day in order to sleep better at night.

Insight

In November, Zeo partnered with Digifit which has health and fitness tracking with heart rate monitoring and Withings with their digital scale. With this partnership, sleep data, exercise data and weight data are brought together at the individual level through a “Dashboard of Healthy Living” SM .

Zeo is partnering with consumer- centric health sites such as DailyBurn to bring consumers their own aggregated data.

This is an emerging opportunity. Think about how other stakeholders can benefit. What if health coaches and clinicians could get a more holistic view into the consumer's activities of daily living and use this information to guide and engage the consumer?

Imagine how self- management tools can enable the consumer to interact with their aggregated data to support health decisions, set goals and manage their health.

There is tremendous value in health and wellness information that is aggregated and accessible by consumers and the many stakeholders that are supporting them.

Have you seen my post on “Follow the Value Brick Road” with the benefits of playing the aggregator role with all this consumer data?