Recently, Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan (CDPHP) out of Albany, N.Y., and WellTok, Inc. announced the roll out of CaféWell, a social health management network that's focused on improving the health of individuals and populations, to all of CDPHP’s 350,000 members throughout New York.
“CaféWell is a website and mobile application that pulls everything as far as health and wellness is concerned into one place for our members – it’s easy and it’s all in one place," said John Demers, vice president of public affairs at CDPHP. "It’s also free to all of our members.”
CDPHP, a physician-founded, member-focused and community-based not-for-profit health plan, teamed up with WellTok, a company out of Denver that designs and develops technology that enables Social Health Management (SHM), following a successful pilot of CaféWell last year.
Demers said CDPHP is also integrating its own Life Points program with CaféWell. Life Points allows CDPHP members to earn points by participating in a variety of healthy activities, such as exercising, getting a flu shot and now, using the CaféWell website and application.
“There is a social aspect to CaféWell and members can choose whether they want to remain anonymous or not," said Demers. "There are discussion groups on subjects such as diabetes or cardiac conditions, and experts post information on the site to generate more discussion information. In addition, there’s a symptom tracker and a health encyclopedia on the site. We hope it will promote healthy behavior among users – it gets people more engaged in their own health and more motivated.”
CaféWell is a proven engagement and wellness driver for CDPHP members. According to Demers, the most recent data collected shows that 68 percent of CaféWell users report running or walking more every week, 36 percent have become more health conscious about their diet and 29 percent have lost weight. That same population demonstrated a 22 percentage-point increase in positive brand affinity towards their health plan.
Demers hopes that CaféWell becomes a long-term approach to better health. “From a health insurance perspective, if we can help bring down healthcare costs overall, companies can stop increasing healthcare premiums,” he said.
“The application of social networking in healthcare is still new, but the results population managers are seeing are immediately proving the case,” said Scott Rotermund, president and co-founder of WellTok, in a press release. “Our population manager clients are seeing dramatic increases in positive consumer engagement with their brand, as well as in healthy consumer behaviors. CDPHP’s proactive sponsorship of CaféWell to its members and incorporating their strong Life Points rewards program is unique in the New York market and places the company among the most innovative health insurers in the country.”
To learn more about CaféWell, visit www.cafewell.com.
Follow HFN Associate Editor Kelsey Brimmer on Twitter @kbrimmerhfn.