CVS Health’s Consumer App Targets Disease Management, Patient Engagement

CVS Health wants its new consumer app to super charge patient engagement and care and disease management, with the company airing a new video outlining the tool at its investor meeting.

“Imagine a world where your health takes center stage,” the video begins, superimposed with a screen stating, “super charge your health.”

The video—clearly meant to mimic and parody an action movie trailer—goes on to display sample images from the consumer-facing app that will give patient users a profile and offer up prescription medication, patient education, and disease management content in a single hub. It’s designed to be a “new destination to super charge your wellbeing,” CVS Health stated in the video.

The tool will let patient users look at all of their prescriptions in a single location, as well as get fill and refill updates via the app with notifications pushed to users’ smartphones.

The system will also give users health management tips and patient education content intended to guide chronic disease management and management of more acute ailments.

CVS Health is also taking advantage of the insurgence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, touting an AI chatbot that will be able to find a new provider or get answers to other health-related questions. Using augmented reality, patients can get wayfinding and navigation help to find different products in their local CVS stores.

Like many other consumer-facing health portals, the system will offer guardians with proxy access to other accounts, which CVS Health indicated will primarily help parents manage their family’s health. In the video, the healthcare company showed a mother’s account and the accounts of her two children tethered together, which could ease family engagement.

The CVS Health consumer app would also provide insights into rewards and benefits, although these functions could be limited depending on a user’s insurance. Aetna health insurance beneficiaries and those with CVS Caremark pharmacy benefits will be able to see deductible information, the video indicated.

Finally, the system sets out to ease patient care access, saying it will connect users with external services and partners. In particular, the video showed in-app access to postpartum provider Maven and mental healthcare provider Headspace. Users will also be able to use the tool to schedule CVS MinuteClinic appointments and appointments with Oak Street Health, which CVS Health owns.

“Everything you need to supercharge your health,” the video stated at the end. “Coming soon to a phone near you.”

Although CVS Health never calls the app a patient portal, it does borrow from the patient portal model many EHR vendors and healthcare organizations have crafted. The technology seems to provide a central hub from which patients can learn more about their healthcare, view their pharmacy and prescription needs, and schedule appointments with CVS-owned providers.

It does seem distinct from the traditional patient portal in that it does not provide patient data access functions, a capability that is foundational to the patient portal.

That said, this move does signal retail health’s continued push into the general healthcare and wellbeing space. The consumer-facing app creates another opening to the digital front door, letting consumers further engage not just with their health but with their health as provided by CVS.