ActiveHealth Management has leveraged the power of data analytics and clinical evidence to improve health outcomes, with significant support from the Validation Institute. Their collaboration has validated ActiveHealth’s impactful programs, demonstrating substantial savings and health improvements. This partnership highlights the efficacy of integrating technology and healthcare to enhance patient care.
Key Takeaways from ActiveHealth’s Impact
- Proven Savings and Health Outcomes: ActiveHealth Management’s programs have been validated by the Validation Institute, demonstrating significant savings and enhanced health outcomes. These results showcase the effectiveness of their data-driven approach.
- Comprehensive Health Management: By integrating clinical evidence and advanced analytics, ActiveHealth effectively manages chronic conditions and promotes lasting behavioral change. Their strategies are tailored to individual health needs, ensuring personalized care.
- Enhanced Patient Engagement: ActiveHealth utilizes a variety of engagement methodologies to connect with individuals in ways that are most comfortable and convenient for them. This approach helps to improve patient involvement and satisfaction.
- Focus on Social Determinants of Health: Recognizing the impact of social factors on health, ActiveHealth is investing in community-based resources to address social risk factors. This broader approach supports overall well-being and enhances the effectiveness of healthcare interventions.
Validation Institute:
Hello everyone, I’m happy to be joined by Carol Benger, CEO of Active Health Management. Hello, Carol, and thank you for joining me today.”
Carol Benger:
Hi, how are you? Thank you for having me.
Overview of Active Health’s Comprehensive Health Solutions
Validation Institute:
I’m doing great. As many of you know out there, Validation Institute vets and validates the performance claims that companies make around outcomes and savings. We like to find companies doing great things like Active Health Management and help buyers learn more about them. So, to get us started, Carol, can you give me a quick overview of Active Health, who you are, and what you do?
Carol Benger:
Sure, I’d be happy to, thank you. Active Health was founded on the notion that we can meaningfully help people improve their health and well-being by marrying relevant data and clinical evidence base and then applying it when it is the best possible chance to make a positive impact on someone’s health and create lasting behavior change.
We like to say we empower people to reach their best health in body, mind, and spirit, one person at a time. It’s the power of the analytics that make that ‘one person at a time’ real.
For the last 25 years, we’re proud that we are a well-established, long-lasting organization that has spent our time building on our core strengths so that we can really have that kind of impact.
We’re continuously adding new sources of data as enhancements in technology have allowed us to do that, like social determinants of health and EMR data, by way of examples.
We make sure that our clinical rules are evidence-based and stand up to review by highly respected institutions like Harvard Medical School so that physicians trust the information we’re giving them.
And by investing in infrastructure and resources to allow us to stay current with hundreds of new clinical guidelines. By integrating broad device data including remote patient monitoring like adding wireless scales and blood pressure cuffs so that we can capture near real-time biometric data for some of our highest risk members in addition to more traditional activity and fitness devices.
At the same time, we’re continuously evolving the scope of our solutions so we can impact people wherever their personal current health is.
We help people with chronic conditions manage them more successfully and we’re focused on the behaviors and habits that cause them so that we can help people avoid them in the first place.
We help people with acute needs coordinate incredibly complicated healthcare systems to get the clinical and social support they need to improve their health.
We offer a wide range of engagement methodologies so that people can connect in new ways that are comfortable and convenient for them.
We understand that people are more than just their conditions and what affects their body also affects their mind and spirit. To be successful in our work together, we need to take a whole person approach, and that’s really foundationally who we are and how we approach things.
Proven Success in Healthcare Savings and Clinical Outcomes with Active Health
Validation Institute:
Well, that’s great. You talked about having been at this for 25 years and the amount of data that you have is just amazing. So, I want to start out by congratulating you because Validation Institute was able to look at all that data and you have two studies that you did with us: one was on your lifestyle and condition coaching program and that showed a savings of over twenty-seven dollars per identified member per month; and then your provider and member messaging program that showed a savings of eight dollars per member per month. Can you walk me through how you achieve these results?
Carol Benger:
Yeah, absolutely. I think I’m gonna take them in reverse order because both of these programs have our Care Engine technology as the analytical foundation.
It’s the clinical rules engine that allows us to address over 250 different conditions with thousands of sophisticated, evidence-based clinical rules.
These rules assess gaps in care that range from life-threatening drug-to-drug and drug-to-condition interactions all the way to recommendations for preventive care and everything in between.
They cover the most prevalent and expensive conditions that face our country today like heart disease and diabetes, but the breadth allows them to also address less common and/or expensive conditions that make a real difference to people.
These clinical algorithms allow us to use pieces of data to identify less obvious risks. Let me tell you a quick story to make this more real.
We sent a health action to one of our members recommending they get screened for an abdominal aortic aneurysm, not something that most organizations are going to send a recommendation around.
He took our advice, went to the doctor, was screened, and they found he had an AAA. He was immediately taken to the hospital, had surgery addressed the issue before it erupted.
It’s not just that we normally wouldn’t know about this, we found out because this member’s physician wrote to us saying they couldn’t believe that a wellness company would reach out and send a health action for something like this.
Frankly, they normally find these when it’s too late, so it’s a dramatic example but that’s why it’s so important not just to use the big conditions only and that every piece of data around a member really makes a difference.
That was the one study, and then on our lifestyle and condition coaching program which builds on this foundation by adding chronic condition and well-being coaching.
For a lot of people, it’s that coaching that makes a difference in terms of achieving really lasting change. Members can opt for self-directed digital coaching personalized based on what we know about their health risks, all of the data inputs that we’ve been discussing, or they can engage in live online group coaching or work one-on-one with a coach.
Your study, or the study we did that you validated, showed cost savings beyond just what you’d expect by engaging higher-risk members to better engage and manage their existing conditions and we really expect to see continued savings as time goes on for those members.
While cost savings are an important part of what we deliver and most clients do expect to see a financial return on their investment, they also want their members to experience better health outcomes.
We do a lot of analysis of the impact of our programs and we see consistent evidence that there are positive clinical impacts as well.
Members are lowering their blood pressure, their hemoglobin A1c values, they’re managing their stress better, they’re eating better, they’re becoming more active, they’re healthier and therefore they’re more productive and more engaged in work and broadly in their daily lives.
Enhancing Health Outcomes through Clinical and Social Support at Active Health
Validation Institute:
So it’s all amazing stuff and I could talk to you about this forever but I know we’re running out of time here but I’m curious about what you said earlier about offering both clinical and social support. Can you talk to me a little bit more about what you mean by that?
Carol Benger:
Absolutely, and you know, if you think about this on a county-by-county basis, there’s about a 20% differential in health outcomes based on clinical care but there’s a 50% differential based on social determinants of health.
So if you think about that, where you live, whether or not you can access care quickly, whether you have food or housing security, whether you have transportation to get to appointments has a greater impact on your health than the actual health care you’re receiving.
So if we want to make a serious and lasting impact on our members’ health, we had to begin to look beyond just what the next step was in their care plan.
We’re investing heavily in finding community-based resources to help our members address their social risk factors because the conditions within the community can help provide strong social support and remove some of the barriers people have that can make a real impact on people’s motivation to improve their health, and in the confidence that they can do it, and that motivation and change can impact the member and that member’s family and friends too.
Validation Institute:
Oh wow, that’s all amazing stuff. Thank you very much, Carol, for sharing all of this with us, and again thank you for being here today and providing us more insight about Active Health. And for everyone out there who wants to learn more about Active Health and how they can save your company money, go to validationinstitute.com and read their validation reports. Carol, again, thank you very much for being here. I hope you have a great day.
Carol Benger:
Thanks, I appreciate it, and it’s great to talk with you today.
