As healthcare providers look to expand their population health efforts, they're going to need to learn how to communicate with consumers. That means reaching them where and when they want to be reached, with messaging they'll accept and appreciate.
"You can't engage people with 'eat your veggies' messaging," says Robb Smith. "You need a full spectrum of support. People want answers on motivation and purpose … and that comes with value-based" healthcare.
Smith is CEO of Chrysallis Health, a Reno, Nev.-based start-up looking to help health systems make that change from episodic, fee-for-service care to value-based care. Chrysallis is piloting an app-based "relationship and engagement cultivation platform" for providers that, in essence, helps push them toward becoming wellness brands.
The company calls its platform an 'iTriage for behavior.'
"It's a shift," says Smith. "But hospitals are embracing the idea that they have to be better at population health and become more lovable as a brand. They need to look at people not as patients but as consumers, who will see the (provider) not as just someplace you go for episodic care but as a partner for life."
Chrysallis is part of a growing number of mHealth-focused companies looking to make consumer engagement a household word for providers. They offer an app-based platform similar to what payers and health plans are offering – a platform that seeks to connect the provider with the consumer to offer branded health and wellness information.
Smith, a former executive with Alere, says health systems aren't comfortable communicating with consumers outside the normal healthcare channels, but need to be if they want to pursue population health strategies. They can't separate clinical service from one's "inner life," he says, and need to be "intrinsically engaging" with consumers, giving them motivational advice and behavior change insights that will make them think of the hospital not just as a place to go when there's a medical emergency.
See also:
Cracking the patient engagement code
