Health Dialog senior vice president David Veroff recently wrote up the results of a study in the journal BMC Medical Informatics & Decision Making.
For the study, Veroff and his colleagues conducted research to find whether or not health coaching could cut medical costs for patients at risk for lumbar, knee and hip surgery. They utilized Health Dialog’s AutoDialog IVR application.
First, the researcher’s utilized predictive modeling to identify patients who were at risk for future knee, hip or back surgery. For example, the researchers identified patients with conditions like knee osteoarthritis, hip osteoarthritis and herniated discs.
Second, the team called patients in the intervention group using AutoDialog outbound IVR. When patients answered the calls, the IVR offered to transfer them to a live health coach to discuss their conditions. The control group in the experiment received direct mailings with an invitation to call an 800-number.
Health Dialog found that members of the intervention group were significantly more likely to make inbound calls to the health coaches than those who only received the mailing. The coaching also cut monthly medical expenses within the intervention group by about five percent.
The coaching was particularly helpful for patients who had one of five chronic conditions: asthma, coronary heart disease, diabetes, COPD and heart failure. For patients who had these illnesses in addition to a risk for hip, knee and back surgeries, coaching delivered a measurable benefit.
“Shared decision making has always had great promise to improve patients’ experiences of care by better aligning their preferences with the care that is received,” said Veroff in a statement.
“This study demonstrates that a scalable remote model of shared decision making support also has a marked impact on overall medical costs.”
The results of the study, of course, benefit Health Dialog’s core business. The company delivers health coaching services, population analytics and consulting services designed to increase patient engagement in their own healthcare.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
