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Powering Consumer Engagement
One of the most compelling aspects of the WebMD Health & Benefits Manager system is also one of the most complex: the WebMD Insight EngineSM.
This is the proprietary technology behind WebMD's product suites that intelligently gathers, aggregates, and shares information to create a single, powerful resource for improving population health.
This article is the first in a series that will help explain how that technology works. We begin with engagement, since it doesn't matter how good an online health portal is unless consumers use it.
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Secure, targeted communications
To truly engage consumers in their health, organizations need to communicate with them regularly. Messages to consumers need to be personal, relevant, and timely, and they need to address each person's health risks, interests, and actions.
Privacy laws offer important protection, but they also can keep individuals from getting the information they need and want.
The Insight Engine securely gathers individual health and portal usage information and aggregates the data to meet HIPAA rules. Then it gives program sponsors the population information they need to direct communications campaigns, while still protecting the privacy of every individual.
WebMD built the Health & Benefits Manager system around this integrated messaging technology so companies can target consumers based on almost any type of information stored in their personal profiles.
Within the Health & Benefits Manager system, program managers can access a library of health messages or develop their own. They choose the population characteristics they want to target — such as health risk or condition, age, gender, readiness-to-change, or even geographic location — and when they want the message to be sent.
The Insight Engine does the rest.
Matching messages to individuals
WebMD's profile-driven technology analyzes every individual's data, matches individual characteristics to the targeting profile, and sends the message only to those people for whom it's appropriate.
Analysis might show a significant population with high blood pressure. The program sponsor can develop a targeted email campaign for those at risk to tell them about eligibility for disease management programs, to guide them towards heart-healthy behaviors, and to promote appropriate lifestyle improvement programs.
Organizations can send messages to engage consumers in a wide range of health and health-program-related activities:
- Raising awareness of specific health resources or decision-support tools
- Motivating a lifestyle change
- Encouraging HRA completion
- Targeting people who have used specific decision-support tools or health resources.
With appropriate permissions — also managed by the Insight Engine — secure messages can even be sent from health program vendors such as health coaches or disease managers.
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