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Category: Behavioral Science

People of mPulse: Eden Brownell, Lead Behavioral Strategist

Posted on by mPulse Team
Meet Eden Brownell, mPulse Mobile’s Lead Behavioral Strategist and resident expert in behavioral science, user design, and public health! As a major contributor to the science behind the engagement programs crafted at mPulse, her efforts help healthcare organizations adjust their initiatives to meet the health needs, boost the confidence levels, and address cultural sensitivities in meaningful ways for their members- essentially reimagining health engagement for the modern age. Eden finds fascination in the intricacies of human behaviors and enjoys “geeking out” (as she loves to put it) on research projects that contribute to the design of our solutions.

“I Love Studying People”

Eden’s journey into this world of behavioral science and healthcare communications started at Saint Michael’s college where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Sociology/Anthropology. “I love studying people…at first thought I wanted to be a child therapist and work in more of a one-on-one setting,” Eden explained. “I did that for about a year and a half and realized I was too close…but I still wanted to work in healthcare and helping people.” That’s when she discovered public health and subsequently went on to get her master’s degree in Public Health focused in Community Health from Boston University. And Eden is already making a stamp on the healthcare world. She has been awarded an Innovators of Healthcare award by UnitedHealthcare in recognition of her contributions towards a program incorporating social determinants of health data into clinician workflow processes to improve care management and enhance plan members’ health. She is also a collaborator on a Boston Medical Health Equity Accelerator pilot program initiative that aims to improve communication with expectant mothers, uncover care barriers and improve health outcomes for both the mother and child in at-risk populations and underserved communities. The program focuses on supporting prenatal patients through their journeys through the provision of general pregnancy education, preeclampsia support, substance use reduction and cessation, housing instability and mental health management. She has been bringing that expertise and experience to mPulse and our solutions as well over the last few years. As our resident behavioral science expert, Eden is a central figure in the creation of, and educating on the strategy behind our programs. Because she has a vast skill set in Content Design, Applied Behavioral Science, Human-Centered Design, Data Analysis, and Social Innovation, she’s an integral member of the team that crafts the outreach and messaging in all the solutions deployed by mPulse Mobile. She also is an esteemed voice for us in the industry on education within the realm of behavioral science and engagement strategy. She, along with Greg Gould, her counterpart Engagement Strategist at mPulse, have been conducting a 5-part webinar series focusing on behavioral science in healthcare. Essentially, they are advocating for healthcare companies to take an outward look at how other industries and major corporations leverage behavioral science to motivate, inspire and drive action in their consumers, fuel behavior change. Then they teach these organizations how to take that and apply it to their own engagement efforts. She was also recently featured on the popular HIT Like A Girl Podcast, A community committed to elevating Women in Healthcare & Health IT, to discuss her contributions to reimagining health engagement for the modern age.

Making a Difference through Science

In her tenure with mPulse, Eden has made significant contributions to mPulse’s Engagement Strategy team through the initiation of mProv Studio: a weekly, interactive design brainstorming studio that offers the team the opportunity to informally brainstorm ways to innovate solutions and make them exciting and engaging. The studio sessions offer the Engagement Strategy team the opportunity to learn more about behavioral science theories and behavior change principles, address integral aspects of the user experience and learning experience design. Additional collaborations are held to expound upon new content and product design ideas to support content development, streaming activities and the delivery of solutions tailored to the daily challenges within the healthcare industry. Currently, Eden is knee-deep in diabetes research in support of the development of an mPulse Mobile training course in Comprehensive Diabetes Care that will utilize behavioral techniques to help diabetics to optimize their health. The 6-month Diabetes Management program consists of a series of interactive initiatives designed to aid member diabetic patients in: Learning to manage their condition; Examining their personal health beliefs; Increasing their self-efficacy; Setting personal goals and improving their day-to-day diabetes management habits. This is all wrapped up in a solution that includes SMS messaging and versatile multi-media learning experiences to utilize the best that each modality has to offer. This program will empower members to actively participate in their health betterment by learning and practicing the skills of active diabetes management.

Goats, Bulldogs, & Eden

Clearly Eden is incredibly busy as an ambassador, thought leader, and behavioral science expert for mPulse, but she still makes time for personal endeavors. She recently became a certified Yoga Instructor under the International Yoga Alliance and branched out into the exciting world of Goat Yoga! She is a dog-mom to Cooper & Magnolia, her two French Bulldogs, as well as being an avid thriller fiction reader and an aspiring Charcuterie Board designer. The views from her beautiful home office in Boston, Massachusetts are the envy of many members of the mPulse team who are all grateful for her valued contributions and enduring optimism.

Frictionless Healthcare: Fueling Behavior Change

Posted on by Eden Brownell

Have you ever wondered why Amazon provides its recommendations or why Netflix tailors your movie menu? It’s not because they must, dear readers. It’s because they know the power of behavioral science.

They both have behavioral science and psychology marketing teams working on the user experience and are uniquely aware of the constant barrage of advertisements and marketing that their consumers are being hit with throughout the day. People, including members we are trying to reach, see between 4k and 10k ads and make about 35,000 decisions every day. To complicate things further, 87% of information is subconsciously filtered. So, most of the time it can be next to impossible to get through to members.

So, you might be asking yourself what is behavioral science? And why does it matter for health communication?

Behavioral science describes the study of behavior through experimentation and observation. Behavioral scientists’ study when and why individuals engage in specific behaviors by examining the impact of factors such as conscious thoughts, motivation, social influences, contextual effects, and habits.

Behavioral science research is diverse and expansive. There is an abundance of work showing that human reasoning does not conform to what common sense predicts. Behavioral scientists study why people sometimes behave in a way that may not maximize their own well-being, such as making choices in the present that do not maximize their happiness in the future; examining how seemingly arbitrary contextual factors influence our decisions, beliefs, and attitudes or test how different incentives affect people’s motivation and behavior.

Learn more about using behavioral science in health communications by viewing our on-demand webinar, Frictionless Healthcare: Fueling Behavior Change »

So, readers, you might be asking yourself how do you apply these ideas in healthcare or health behavior change? If we really want to drive behavior change, we need to understand how people behave. When it comes down to it, there’s a lot of human behavior that we can explain in terms of two simple forces: Friction and Fuel. A rocket ship is a helpful metaphor that Dan Ariely uses to describe behavior change. To get a rocket ship moving, you need to increase fuel and decrease friction. To change behavior, you need to increase fuel (increasing motivation) and decrease friction (removing barriers). And it turns out, these concepts play out quite well in healthcare, so let’s examine that.

The Friction

In healthcare, frictions are anything that get in the way of your member performing a positive health behavior. Friction is typically caused by uncertainty on the part of your member. They could be uncertain about how hard an action will be, how long it will take, or how much it will cost.

Technology can go a long way to uncover and decrease friction.

One way is to employ barrier messages to uncover challenges (the friction) a member may be facing. Barrier messages are specific questions posed based on research of top barriers for specific audiences with specific health actions. Barriers happen. Why not proactively create opportunities to uncover and address them?

Once the barrier is discovered, we can work to solve it then drive motivation using proven behavior science techniques. You can see examples of those barrier messages below and observe how in a short phone screen you can do a lot to try to reduce barriers and increase motivation.

 

The Fuel

Speaking of motivation, fuel is anything that makes a positive health behavior more appealing. This could be member testimonials that utilize people copy the actions of others in an attempt to undertake behavior in a given situation) or an offering using incentives to activate the concept of reciprocity. Or you could utilize the endowment effect in messaging (an emotional bias that causes individuals to value an owned object higher, often irrationally, than its market value) like The Behavior Change for Good Initiative (BCFG) did to boost flu vaccine rates by up to 11%. The most powerful of these vaccination texts simply used ‘reserved for you’ messaging.

One of the ways we use these concepts is in stories or fotonovelas. This format is something members are used to seeing on social media, are they are quick and viewable on-the-go.

The Big Picture

Behavioral science can be tricky, but you can use the concept of friction and fuel to make a big difference in behavior change. This post was just an introduction to friction and fuel in healthcare, but we’ll be following up with a lot more information around the specific concepts and examples of each, so stay tuned for part 2!

Improved Patient Engagement Through Interactive Texting Accelerates mPulse Mobile’s Growth

Posted on by mPulse Team

The rise in consumer-directed healthcare and increasing requirements for improving cost efficiencies has fueled the adoption of mobile strategies among healthcare organizations, contributing to the company’s expansion

Los Angeles, Calif. (December 12, 2016) – Mobile engagement solutions provider mPulse Mobile today announced several additions to its client base and staff, contributing to the company’s impressive 2016 growth. Propelled by new and dynamic partnerships with clients representing multiple healthcare verticals, mPulse Mobile’s successes are a testament to industry demand for insight-driven mobile solutions that help companies engage consumers to achieve lower costs and improved health outcomes.

As healthcare organizations seek strategies for meeting the demands required of the shift to value-based care and reimbursement models, mPulse Mobile is well-positioned to continue its growth trajectory in 2017 and beyond. Multiple bodies of research indicating individuals who are more actively involved in their health experience better outcomes and incur lower costs have driven health plans, providers, Medicaid, pharmaceutical, and population health management organizations to implement innovative mobile strategies over the past 12 months. Faced with the need to improve health outcomes while achieving operational efficiencies, healthcare organizations have looked to mPulse Mobile to design and launch cost-effective mobile strategies that reach consumers through the most effective channel – their mobile phones.

Southern Jersey Family Medical Centers, Inc. (SJFMC) and Interleukin Genetics, Inc. (Interleukin) are two of mPulse Mobile’s newest clients leveraging interactive text messaging workflows to better communicate with and engage consumers in their care. SJFMC aims to prompt positive behavior change among its patients diagnosed with chronic diseases through its partnership with mPulse Mobile. Using interactive text messages to communicate appointment and medication reminders and wellness-related information to patients, the community health center network is confident compliance will increase. Interleukin offers a program that can transform the management of inflammation to prevent and reduce the severity of chronic diseases using genetic insights and actionable guidance. The mPulse Mobile solution includes interactive educational text message workflows based on the individual’s genetics, inflammation levels, risk factors and readiness to change in order to activate them to adopt new habits and manage periodontal disease.

“We chose to partner with mPulse Mobile because of its behavioral science expertise and history of delivering mobile strategies that drive positive behavior change,” said Interleukin Genetics CEO Mark Carbeau. “Optimal oral health is foundational to one’s well-being, and we’re excited by the potential this solution has to improve members’ overall health.”

Several new-in-2016 client engagements have already demonstrated the value of partnering with mPulse Mobile on a mobile engagement strategy. Magellan Rx Management, a division of Magellan Health, Inc., collaborated with mPulse Mobile on an employer-oriented text messaging solution to increase medication refill rates across an at-risk employee population. The program yielded encouraging early results for the pharmacy benefit manager, including 85 percent participation and a refill rate increase of more than 20 percent.

“mPulse Mobile understands the unique challenges in improving engagement and medication adherence within different populations. Their intelligent, consumer-focused mobile strategies are helping us deliver differentiated value to our customers,” said Matthew Mertel, senior vice president of marketing and product innovation, Magellan RX Management.

As the company’s client roster continues to expand, so does its staff. The need to support client growth with staff possessing a range of experience and capabilities aligned with their unique offering led mPulse Mobile to double its number of employees year-over-year in 2016. Among the newest crop of team members is Justin Nelson, appointed senior vice president of sales and account management. Previously TigerText’s president of worldwide sales, Nelson brings more than 20 years’ experience to the role in which his responsibilities include leading revenue acquisition, account management and customer satisfaction teams.

“We’re grateful for opportunities presented to us this year that have allowed us to grow significantly and deliver great results for our clients,” remarked mPulse Mobile CEO and co-founder Chris Nicholson. “We’re optimistic that 2017 will be another banner year for us, and look forward to strengthening existing relationships and establishing new partnerships with the most innovative healthcare organizations in the country.”

mPulse Mobile’s participation at a variety of industry events over the past 12 months has facilitated connections with healthcare leadership nationwide. mPulse Mobile’s senior vice president of marketing, Paige Mantel, will close out a successful year of speaking engagements today with a presentation at the Personal Connected Health Alliance (PCHA) Connected Health Conference. The session, Tailored and Interactive Text Messaging to Engage and Activate Patients, will share data and insights from a study in partnership with Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) on two-way, interactive text messages’ ability to increase member activation and knowledge of IEHP’s offerings among 17,000 newly-enrolled Medicaid members.

About mPulse
mPulse, the leader in mobile health engagement, drives improved health outcomes and business efficiencies by engaging individuals with meaningful and interactive dialog. mPulse Mobile combines technology, analytics and industry expertise that helps healthcare organizations activate their customers to adopt healthy behaviors. With over 8 years, a hundred million messages sent, and 50+ Health Plan, Provider, Pharma and Wellness customers, mPulse Mobile has the data, the experience and the technology to drive healthy behavior change.