Virgin Pulse Acquires Welltok to Improve Patient Engagement Outreach

Virgin Pulse, a provider of health and wellbeing solutions, has acquired the consumer activation company Welltok to increase patient engagement and improve health outcomes for members.

The companies also aim to decrease costs for their more than 4,000 shared clients through the merge.

“This acquisition is the culmination of years of work to establish a game-changing approach to improve health and reducing costs for employers, health plans, and health systems,” Chris Michalak, chief executive officer of Virgin Pulse, stated in the press release.

“Combining our organizations will allow us to optimize the health of millions by keeping them continually engaged and activated, which will ultimately reduce costs for clients, members, consumers, and patients.”

Welltok is known for its personalized approach to encouraging consumers and patients to stay engaged with their healthcare. Using predictive analytics and social determinants of health data, the company notifies patients through text, email, social media, and interactive voice response calls to remind them to complete tasks such as refilling a medication or participating in a mental health program.

Virgin Pulse provides consumers with digital solutions that support daily habits to improve long-term behavior and health outcomes.

The acquisition of Welltok will enhance Virgin Pulse’s Homebase for Health experience by creating a new engagement platform for clients, members, and consumers.

The platform will leverage more than 1,000 predictive analytics models that will identify individuals with up to 90 percent accuracy who are most likely to respond to outreach methods, the companies said.

The consumer database will aim to help health plans and health systems develop social determinants of health strategies to address health disparities in underserved and diverse populations, including Medicare Advantage and Managed Medicaid members.

The platform will also help the companies employ patient activation strategies for clients through multi-channel outreach to encourage patients to complete health and wellbeing tasks. When patients interact with the platform daily, their engagement levels will increase, according to the companies.

Lastly, the new platform will offer personalized solutions that combine technology, behavior science, gamification, and live support from specialists, the companies said.

“Integrating Welltok’s personalization and analytics capabilities into Homebase for Health will deliver exponentially more value for our clients and their respective populations,” Michalak added.

The financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed.

When it comes to increasing patient activation, leveraging smartphones is a common and effective way to get the job done. Patient portals, telehealth, mHealth applications, and text message outreach can all improve patient activation and engagement rates, and patients can access these tools through their smartphones.