The adoption of digital solutions in health care has steadily increased in recent years in an effort to ensure uninterrupted and safe patient care amid the COVID-19 pandemic. While the shift has fostered greater adoption of digital solutions and advancements in care, it has also further highlighted social determinants and inequities that factor into the digital divide. Dr. Shruti Singal of First Choice Health and Andrew Tomlinson of the American Health Information Management Association join us to discuss the digital divide – specifically, its root causes, who is most affected and how stakeholders, including health plans and health care providers, are working to bridge it.

Health plans increasingly underscore the importance of whole-person care and a holistic approach to health. Susan Beaton of Wellframe and Dominick Bizzarro of MVP Health Care join us to explore the meaning of this idea and how health insurers can integrate a whole-member mindset into their plans to meet the physical, behavioral and experiential needs of members, wherever they are. 

The explosion in telemedicine seen early in the pandemic opened the door to totally new ways of delivering health care -- one that many consumers came to value. Health plans responded with virtual-first plans -- including pioneer Priority Health, which had started on its virtual-first journey even prior to the pandemic. Megan Schmidt, senior vice president of employer solutions at Priority Health, joins us to talk about that work, what her team has learned, and what's important as plans continue to build out this new model of health care delivery. 

Customer experience is only as good as the employees who deliver it. In this episode, Wellframe's Michele Gabron and Chief Customer's Ingrid Lindberg describe their vision for employee experience, including efforts to create authentic connection and the importance of fair compensation. They describe bright spots, explain why it's long past time for a life-work balance paradigm, and share thoughts for leaders whose teams have worked the front lines of the pandemic.

This episode is brought to you by Wellframe.

Additional Resources

Global Benefits Attitudes Survey 2022 - WTW (wtwco.com)

STOP asking your employees if they want to go back to the office. - Chief Customer, LLC

The future of work - Chief Customer, LLC

Although health plans have long been committed to improving health equity, their efforts took on new urgency – and got new levels of buy-in – as the COVID-19 pandemic turned a spotlight on the serious consequences of inequity. We talk with Wellframe Chief Medical Officer Sandhya Gardner and Priority Health President Praveen Thadani about the scope of the challenge and solutions at the patient, practice, community and system levels.

This episode is brought to you by Wellframe. 

Health plans have long known the importance of digital transformation. But reorienting large, established organizations around new ways of doing things is not easy, and the COVID-19 pandemic cast a brighter light on existing challenges and introduced new ones. In this episode, we speak to Jake Sattelmair, CEO of Wellframe, and Steve Krupa, CEO of HealthEdge, about how leaders can not only effectively navigate a constantly changing landscape but also spur commitment to change, gain buy-in and implement new ways of working without breaking existing systems.

This episode is brought to you by Wellframe. 

Digital transformation is a goal for many health plans, but it doesn't do much for members and health outcomes unless it's built around a core of consumer centricity. Done right, digital transformation is a means to more compassionate, empathetic, personal health care, and it connects the dots across the health care system. In this two-part episode, UnitedHealthcare Chief Consumer Officer Rebecca Madsen and Wellframe CEO Jake Sattelmair explain how health plans can embrace the promise of digital transformation -- and why they must.

This episode is brought to you by Wellframe. 

There’s nothing more personal than health, but industry stakeholders have not always excelled at personalizing the experience of health care. That’s changing, say Oscar Chief Operating Officer Meghan Joyce and Wellframe co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer Dr. Trishan Panch, who argue personalization of content and experience matters because it is critical to empowering patients and building the trust needed for great health care. They say organizational commitment and alignment are key to enabling personalization. Meanwhile, technology enables health care personalization to be executed effectively at scale. Joyce and Panch share recommendations for starting out, building on progress, and ultimately democratizing access and improving health outcomes.

This episode is brought to you by Wellframe.

Resources
A pragmatic methodology for the evaluation of digital care management in the context of multimorbidity, Journal of Medical Economics

A McKinsey report found that telehealth usage in April 2020 was 78 times higher than in February 2020. Although use has moderated, it remains substantially higher than before the pandemic. In this episode Dr. Prentiss Taylor, vice president of medical affairs at Included Health, formerly known at Grand Rounds + Doctor On Demand, and Mohammad Jouni, chief technology officer at Wellframe discuss what makes a great telehealth experience and how health plans can facilitate it. They see it as not only an opportunity to address a patient’s concern, but also as a touchpoint for connecting them with resources, educating them about their benefits and identifying needs they may not even realize they have.

This episode is brought to you by Wellframe.

The COVID-19 pandemic cast a spotlight on socioeconomic health disparities in this country, but those disparities have been evident and especially acute for years among mothers and infants in this country.  And poor maternal and infant health outcomes are especially pronounced in populations of color. Venicia Gray, senior manager for maternal and infant health for the National Partnership for Women and Families, and Dr. Sandhya Gardner, chief medical officer of Wellframe discuss the drivers of poor maternal and infant health outcomes, the outsized impact of systemic racism, what moms and babies need for good health and solutions to the maternal and infant health crisis. 

This episode is brought to you by Wellframe.

Resources

Learn more about this issue from the National Partnership on Women and Families