Twine Partners with St. Luke’s for Employee Health Activation
BOISE, Idaho (PRWEB) May 03, 2017 -- St. Luke’s Healthy U program for employees and beneficiaries is based on the premise that good health depends largely on the choices people make every day. The population health initiative engages, educates and empowers employees, their families, and the St. Luke’s community to achieve optimal health, while providing support to help adopt and maintain healthy lifestyles. St. Luke’s recently adopted Twine Health’s Employee Health Activation Platform for its health coaching program offered to all employees and beneficiaries who participate in annual biometric screenings for hypertension, obesity, diabetes and back pain.
Using Twine, St. Luke’s health coaches engage with patients in continuous, collaborative care. They co-create health action plans based on the patients’ personal goals, needs and desires. These plans focus on incremental changes that break down difficult lifestyle changes into manageable steps. For example, the difficult road to eating healthier for someone with high blood pressure might start with, “skip the sausage on your breakfast sandwich twice this week.” The plan might also include “take your lisinopril (medication) each day,” and “check your blood pressure once this week.” The plans are automatically synchronized to the patients’ phones, and they get reminders to complete the actions throughout the day. As patients check off those actions, Twine builds out their profile with progress towards goals and adherence rates. These inputs then trigger alerts for coaches and other care team members, enabling timely intervention, support, motivation and celebration through the secure messaging feed.
“We’ve had good reception to this program from our employees, and exceeded our historical annual quota within 45 days. In addition, we are finding better engagement rates due to our ability to connect with people in-between visits,” said Carmen Oldenburg, MA, CHES Wellness Manager at St. Luke's Health System. “Through word-of-mouth, we’re getting referrals for the program from other St. Luke’s employees.”
George Beauregard, DO, Chief Physician Executive for St. Luke’s Health Partners, described the importance of establishing a health coaching model for certain patients within their fully-capitated risk arrangements, “A big challenge facing providers who want to be in value-based care agreements is the ambulatory care management piece.” Dr. Beauregard added, “We knew that care management worked, but scaling was the difficulty. Getting patients activated and engaged was far more efficient than simply increasing coaching resources.”
Twine Health CEO, John Moore, MD, PhD described the success of this and other programs using Twine, “A successful employee health activation program takes more than just the technology. The St. Luke’s coaches and patients themselves are the real heroes. Health coaching and a ‘patient-first’ philosophy are central to achieving great outcomes and an incredible experience. Twine’s role in the program is make these human connections more convenient and delightful than ever, so that people stay motivated and that programs can scale with tremendous cost-effectiveness.”
Karen Romans, Head of Customer Success for Twine Health added, "The St. Luke's team has truly embraced Twine as a tool to augment their coaching and extend their reach in the community. Coupled with strong leadership support, we have no doubt that they will continue to be extremely successful. They’re a truly impressive group!"
About St. Luke’s Health System: St. Luke’s is Idaho’s only Idaho-based, not-for-profit health system, with local physicians and boards who further the organization's mission "To improve the health of people in the communities we serve." St. Luke's is nationally recognized for excellence in patient care, with prestigious awards and designations reflecting the exceptional care that's synonymous with the St. Luke's name.
About Twine Health: Twine's cloud-based Employee Health Activation Platform is designed to empower workplace health providers to dramatically improve participation, engagement, and outcomes of their programs, leading to significant reductions in healthcare costs. Twine is based on the founders’ six years of research at the MIT Media Lab in health psychology and human-computer interaction. It taps patients’ intrinsic motivations with personalized action plans, and equips care teams with powerful analytics and artificial intelligence to provide more timely and effective care. The Twine platform is used across wellness and disease management programs, but is most impactful in improving chronic disease outcomes, having produced the largest published impact on hypertension and diabetes to date. For more, visit http://www.twinehealth.com.
Chris Storer, Twine Health, http://www.twinehealth.com, +1 (617) 470-6077, [email protected]
Share this article