Can Digital Coaching Really Move the Needle on Employee Health Behaviors?

New Ocean Health Solutions is on a mission to change the tides on employees’ health and wellness. But what does that tangibly look like? One way to help achieve that tide change is a science-backed, affordable, easy-to-use digital health solution. One that offers management of your employees’ health and wellness no matter where they find themselves on their health journey. The ability to set goals and achieve results for every individual, at every stage of wellness, at every organization.

So, how do we get there? With our proactive science-based digital coach featured across our platform.

What is science-based digital coaching?

Science-based digital coaching replicates the support that a live health coach provides via in-app proactive check-ins and real-time response to user inputs. As our in-house team of experts built out our platform, they considered all the functions that a live coach performs—identifying patients who may be at risk, developing a profile for them, talking through their health needs and goals, setting them up with a plan to work towards those goals, providing real-time feedback and analysis of their health—and developed software messaging that offers those same capabilities seamlessly.

Why use science-based digital coaching?

There are several ways that science-based digital coaching can help your employees choose healthier habits—not just while they’re using a health management tool, but in the everyday moments of their lives, at work and and home.

• Accessibility – With our coaching, users don’t have to schedule an appointment or sit through hold music to hear how they’re tracking on their goals. All the information
they need is available on their own time, privately, from the convenience of their phone.
• Continuity – Our digital coaching algorithm takes into account what health data users track, what habits they report, and what content they look at to provide tailored,
real-time healthy tips and suggestions. All that information in a single location makes for one integrated health journey. With New Ocean, there’s no need to jump from
site to site or person to person to get information or answers.
• Affordability – When the information your employees need is always available and up to date, there’s no need to pay per session or phone call for coaching services.

How does it work?

It all begins with our private health assessments. Our approach is to prioritize the time and comfort of our users. That’s why we offer two options for health assessments; one of which can be completed in under two minutes. Instead of interrogating users with invasive questions that look for problems, we start with a confidential health assessment that can learn about your employees’ health risks and goals in as little as two minutes. Companies and health plans can also provide us their claims data file and then provide employees and members access to start the programs within a week. From there, our science-based digital coach kicks in, offering people feedback as they complete their questionnaire and identifying health and well-being programs tailored to each person—regardless of what health issues they’re facing.

As users continue their journey, our health management solution will help them set goals, motivate them, track their health, link out to providers as needed, and continually reward users as they make incremental gains on their journey to wellness. These proactive coaching prompts are a big part of that. For example, a user who is looking to better control their diabetes and manage their weight can receive customized prompts with tips for healthy food shopping and cooking, encouragement toward incremental increases in physical activity, and a notification to contact their doctor if their recorded glucose is too high.

But – does it work?

Our science-based digital coaching is backed by the principles of behavioral science to drive behavior change in an intuitive way that’s easy for users to understand. People who use our platform will grasp the benefits of the actions they’re being encouraged to take without feeling like they’re being overwhelmed with such messaging.

And its effectiveness is reinforced by our year-over-year data. Since 2018, as many as 50% of our users with unhealthy habits said they experienced life-changing behavior breakthroughs. Up to 46% of users who initially said they were suffering or struggling in terms of health and wellness have moved to “thriving.” And up to 36% have sought more preventive health care measures —flu shots, mammograms, screenings for high blood pressure, and more. All these factors lead to a healthier population.

To learn more about the science behind our solution and how it could improve the health of your people and your business, contact us.