Author: Jon Brandon, Ph.D., Chief Learning Officer, Album Health
As a practicing licensed psychologist, I became quite adept at predicting which of my patients would achieve emotional health and which would continue to struggle. It’s this simple. Those patients who are fully engaged in the therapeutic process and work hard to achieve their goals get healthy — those who did not, have poorer outcomes.
While it’s easy to blame the patient for not getting better, what I learned is that not everyone has a natural ability to remain self-motivated. Most of us need ongoing encouragement and guidance to keep up the hard work required to better our health.
As we were conceptualizing AlbumHealth’s Emotional Health+ Program, I wanted to create a new construct that provided the support that most people need to stay on track with their personalized behavior plan. This type of support is essential to meaningful and sustainable behavior change.
So, we built EASE™, our dynamic data-driven analytics engine that uses the real-time analysis of personal health status to inform us of the specific barriers each participant faces, and how to intervene to improve their outcomes.
EASE continuously monitors the 4 key participant constructs that best determine success: Engagement, Adherence, Satisfaction, and Effectiveness.
Through EASE, we intentionally measure engagement and adherence daily. When our data indicates that engagement is waning, the platform triggers an outreach response to re-engage the participant. To understand how we apply this construct in the real world and help participants stay engaged, meet Carmen.
Carmen’s Journey
When Carmen enrolled in AlbumHealth’s Emotional Health+ Program, she was 30 and suffering from fibromyalgia, moderate anxiety, and high blood pressure. Her SF-36 scores indicated reduced functioning, and responses to our health assessment uncovered weekend binge drinking.
Carmen’s personalized behavior plan was multifaceted to focus on key areas for health improvement. She enrolled in our digital Emotional Health Improvement Program, exercised regularly, took her medications, and followed an anti-inflammatory diet. Her AlbumHealth Coach provided ongoing education, encouragement, and guidance about staying on track.
Initially, Carmen was on-board and focused. Yet by week three, EASE analytics showed that her personalized behavior plan adherence was beginning to fall. Immediately, Carmen’s AlbumHealth Coach received an alert from EASE to reach out.
During their discussion, goals were re-aligned to reflect what Carmen felt was attainable given her life situation. The AlbumHealth Coach also addressed her continuing anxiety, which Carmen admitted was a challenge, by facilitating a referral to her EAP and monitoring progress via Album’s fully integrated personalized behavior change platform.
Carmen got back on track. Over time, she was able to maintain an impressive 83% adherence with her personalized behavior plan, due to real-time interactions within the AlbumHealth digital platform and live conversations with her AlbumHealth Coach. After 8 months in the program, Carmen’s anxiety had significantly decreased, as did her blood pressure and pain from fibromyalgia.
Carmen’s journey highlights why AlbumHealth’s unique approach to whole person health drives improved and sustainable outcomes. EASE gives us the ability to identify and intervene when a participant’s engagement and adherence declines. Through AlbumHealth’s responsive technology, we inspire the participant with real-time, actionable insights that facilitate changes in behavior.
We are resolute in our mission to drive effectiveness into behavior change strategies for our participants. To learn more about how AlbumHealth’s innovative approach can help your employees finally achieve better health, click here.
