Don’t Forget to Automate
A surefire way to engage patients in their own health.
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It seems obvious that the more automated a digital health solution is, the more likely it is people will use it. But how much more likely? Greg Orr, VP of Walgreens’ Digital Division, helped answer this question a few weeks back at the widely attended HIMSS Conference (held in Orlando this year).
Speaking on a forum about digital and personal connected health, Orr unpacked the results of a recently published study Walgreens had done with Scripps Translational Science Institute. The study explored how incentives and mobile and wearable technologies affect people’s behavior.
Researchers examined over 300,000 individuals enrolled in Walgreens’ Web-based Balance Rewards for healthy choices (BRhc) program in 2014. Aimed at improving medication adherence and health generally, the program incentivized people to record personal metrics in areas such as exercise, weight, and glucose count.
Participants earned points whenever they logged certain activities and could then use those points to make purchases at Walgreens. What’s striking is how the method by which people tracked and recorded their metrics influenced their levels of engagement. Participants could either manually upload their activity data to the BRhc portal or use a linked app or device that automatically tracked and uploaded the data for them.
Those who manually recorded their activities stayed in the rewards program for 10.54 weeks on average. Not bad. But participants whose activities were automatically logged more than doubled that figure, staying in the program for 24.01 weeks. Moreover, those in the “manual” camp were far less active than their “automated” counterparts and only managed to string together 5.23 consecutive weeks in which they recorded at least one activity. Those in the automation group kept at it for 20.15 weeks.
Participants who “manually” recorded their activities for the Walgreens rewards program stayed in the program for 10.54 weeks on average. Those who used apps and devices to “automatically” log their activities stayed for 24.01 weeks.
Automation spurs engagement. That much is clear. If automating the collection of data can yield such sharp rises in user engagement, then imagine the potential gains made by automating the analysis of data.
Consider the effect of a device that not only supplies the user with a lone fitness metric (e.g., number of steps), but that also analyzes that metric, with the help of machine learning algorithms, against other data around the user’s sleeping patterns, weight, and blood glucose levels. Such analysis would generate deep, actionable insights for the user without the user having to do anything. Part of this, of course, depends on technologists creating wearables that automatically read a person’s biometrics.
If automating the collection of data can yield such sharp rises in user engagement, then imagine the potential gains made by automating the “analysis” of data.
It’d be worthwhile to see the outcomes of a program like BRhc but that provides each participant with tailored holistic insights.
In any case, the Walgreens study reminds us that automating the user experience of digital health tools is a surefire way to engage patients in their own health.
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