Onlife Health, Validic Release Research Demonstrating Improved Wellness Engagement with Device Usage
Research shows device connectivity led to a 23.7% increase in engagement from new members and claims costs nearly $500/year lower for sedentary members who increased their activity levels
Onlife Health, a national company with 23 years of expertise in delivering comprehensive wellness engagement solutions, and Validic, the leading provider of health data solutions for remote monitoring and virtual engagement, announced research demonstrating improved member engagement from the use of wearables and home health devices in wellness programs. The research indicates the growing importance of a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategy to engage members daily on their lifestyle, behaviors and health measures as a means to improve the total health of a population.
As consumerism trends continue to shift healthcare and wellness strategies, leading organizations are increasingly offering greater choice in programs as a way to meet members where they are in their health journey. Because nearly 35% of wearable owners today have a device that is not manufactured by one of the top five wearable vendors, Onlife Health offers members connections to more than 90 devices and apps.
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Research demonstrated a 23.7% increase in new member engagement for those with connected devices, signifying the importance for health and wellness organizations to offer broad device connectivity to members. This engagement is indicative of larger outcomes-based trends; for example, as employees increased their activity each day (as measured by steps), the resulting impact was reduced claims costs and improved outcomes. Specifically, employees who averaged 5,000 to 7,500 steps daily had healthier blood pressure indicators than those with sedentary lifestyles and were less likely to have out-of-range BMIs. These employees also saw annual claims costs more than $800 lower than those of sedentary employees. Importantly, sedentary employees who increased their activity levels even by small amounts had claims costs nearly $500/year lower than those who did not change their lifestyle.
“Offering members a connection to just a single device severely limits the ability of an organization to reach their full population,” said Onlife Health CEO Mark McConnell. “By providing access to a broad spectrum of devices via Validic, we’re giving members the freedom to use their preferred device or app. The resulting increase in engagement leads to a deeper understanding of the story of each member’s health, enabling us to offer a most personalized approach that produces sustained behavior change and improved outcomes.”
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Research indicates that in order to create successful wellness engagement, organizations must connect members with tools and methods that fit into their existing lifestyles. These tools must support a personalized approach to affect behavior change and health improvement. As such, Onlife Health continues to expand its devices offerings – via Validic’s data connectivity platform – to reach more members and enable deeper insights that focus on improving members’ total health.
“There is no one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare, and the same goes for wellness programs,” said Validic CEO Drew Schiller. “In order to engage populations in a meaningful way, organizations must deliver access to the tools members are already using to manage their conditions every day. By offering a bring-your-own-device strategy, Onlife Health has demonstrated how personalized engagement can create positive behaviors that lead to improved self-management of health and better lifestyle choices.”
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