INNOVATION – CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

An Omnibus App Succeeds by Focusing on Consumers 
Today’s health care consumer is forced to negotiate an often complex digital universe, using multiple passwords to access a variety of health-related websites and applications in order to communicate with their providers or obtain general wellness information. Although patients greatly prefer digital channels for medical communications, juggling sites and apps can be time-consuming and confusing.  

Advocate Aurora Health, with locations in Wisconsin and Illinois, saw an opportunity in these challenges. The goal: create an app that will serve as a single destination for health care consumers. 

The eventual app, called LiveWell, was created after years of research and development. The needs of consumers were the driving focus.  

“It is very intentional that the consumer is at the center of all things we do,” explains Kelly Jo Golson, executive vice president and chief brand, communications and consumer experience officer at Advocate Health. “We are a consumer-first organization with a steadfast commitment to making it easier to connect—whether to seek care or wellness-related information.” 

“The first iteration of LiveWell was launched back in 2019,” adds Jamey Shiels, system vice president, consumer experience at Advocate Aurora. “At that point, we fully integrated the electronic health record, health and wellness capabilities, medical guidance, health risk assessments, healthy recipes, etc. It has been a long journey with a full commitment from the organization to get to where we are today.” 

 

Golson and Shiels discussed the development and launch of the app during a recent episode of the SHSMD Podcast and described the response to the app on the SHSMD blog. LiveWell effectively bundles clinical services and health and wellness information into a user-friendly digital platform with seamless connections, which explains why consumer engagement with the app is so high.  

There have been 1.5 million downloads, 850,000 virtual visits and 1.2 million appointments made online. They have seen a 25% increase year over year in app sessions and a 250% increase in engagement with their wellness content. The app store shows a rating of 4.7 stars (out of 5).  

LiveWell allows for a unified login that works with both the patient’s electronic health record and Advocate Aurora’s customer relationship management system. Guests can also view wellness articles and tools without logging in. Third-party health-related apps can also be accessed. 

Although its launch date is now a few years in the past, the health and wellness app never ceases to innovate. As one might expect, consumers play an outsized role in its continual development.  

“As health care providers we can make assumptions,” Golson says, “but it’s another thing to hear directly from our patients and consumers. So, we have deployed tools to get real-time feedback as the app is used. Consumers can give us ratings on a scale of one to five, or a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.”  

As feedback is received, Advocate Aurora’s digital experience team and operational staff work to implement improvements.  

“Patients are coming back to the app on a regular basis to get additional features and functionality,” Shiels notes. “This is not a case of ‘one and done.’ The app offers several features that consumers want to use.”  

Features include messaging from and to clinicians, appointment scheduling, search engines for providers, bill payment, healthy recipes, guided meditations, a product called “health enews” with unique content created by Advocate Aurora, health management information and more. Several new health risk assessment tools will be introduced in 2023, among other features. 

“We see this as the critical next phase to truly empower the consumer to connect their health care ecosystem and better manage their health,” Golson says.  

There are benefits for the health care system as well. Disease state health measures can be tracked to get outcomes data that can improve health care, and the ease of use means appointment scheduling is simplified. 

With such impressive results, other health care systems may want to create their own versions of LiveWell. To do so, Golson and Shiels say, the first thing they will need is complete buy-in from the topmost rung of the organization.  

“Alignment is critical,” Shiels notes, “as is a close partnership with consumer experience, IT and operations staff.” 

“Organizational readiness is really vital,” Golson adds. “It starts with understanding your consumer and what they want, and then getting a strong partnership and collaboration with the IT and operations departments, as well as your medical and nursing staff—that’s paramount. You need all those individuals at the table to work through this.” 

In the meantime, LiveWell will continue to upgrade its offerings.  

“There is no telling where this thing is going to go,” Golson says. “The technology and the advancements are really remarkable, and the sky’s the limit for functionality. But we fundamentally believe that our patients and our consumers deserve to live their healthiest life.” 

Merger Creates Advocate Health 
In early December, Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health announced that their proposed merger has been completed. The resulting organization, called Advocate Health, is now the fifth largest medical nonprofit organization in the United States, with 67 hospitals and more than 1,000 sites of care, where 21,000 physicians and 42,000 nurses see nearly 6 million patients.  

The new health system will operate in Illinois, Wisconsin, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, and it will be headquartered in Charlotte, N.C.