Customer Profile

Baylor Health Care System is a faith-based, not-for-profit, 13 hospital system based in Dallas, Texas. The system employs over 17,000 individuals and is consistently ranked in the U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Hospitals" guide.

The Challenge

Baylor realized that it served an increasingly involved consumer population and wanted to provide the community with advanced health information and tools through its website. The health system also knew that it was in a competitive market and sought methods to further engage this population while differentiating itself.

The Solution

Baylor selected A.D.A.M.'s online health content, which includes consumer-oriented health information, in English and Spanish, on more than 3,900 medical topics as well as over 3,000 illustrations.

Baylor realized that consumers often come to its website to learn and if necessary, take the next step toward seeking medical care. In line with this knowledge, Baylor added A.D.A.M.'s Embedded Messaging solution to its website, further linking consumers to action. Embedded Messaging is search engine optimized, customized content about Baylor and its services within the A.D.A.M. reference library topic areas. Through customized branding and Embedded Messaging, Baylor was able to achieve a seamless look and feel with the remainder of the website.

Baylor enhanced its web presence and launched a brand new site, to attract and retain website visitors while helping them understand their care needs. The new site included additional A.D.A.M. solutions, including Symptom Navigator, Health Risk Assessment tools, and Drug Tools in English and Spanish.

Most recently, A.D.A.M. and Baylor collaborated on an innovative mobile device strategy when Baylor began offering the Symptom Navigator for the iPhone. The Symptom Navigator for the iPhone is a state-of-the-art interactive web-enabled mobile application that allows consumers to better understand a condition and when to seek care. The solution includes Baylor branding and is designed to drive consumer traffic to the Baylor website.

The Result

The health system believes in the strategic value of the website and in consumer directed healthcare, where consumers are provided with the health information and tools to make informed choices.

Since the launch, Baylor has seen an increase in website visitor volume and website visitor length of stay is up.

"Consumers are continually coming to the Baylor website seeking quality health information and tools," said Patty Reupke, director of consumer relationship marketing, Baylor Health Care System.

The A.D.A.M. health content was provided to Baylor in an XML self-hosted format allowing the organization to receive continuous updates through the TransADAM technology while allowing the health system to implement and mange the content on-site.

Case Studies - Highmark Inc.

CUSTOMER PROFILE

An independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Highmark Inc. offers a variety of health insurance and related products and is one of the leading health insurers in nation. Highmark serves 4.7 million people through the company's health care benefits business and contributes millions of dollars to help keep quality health care programs affordable and to support community-based programs that work to improve people's health.

Committed to making healthy living easier for its members, Highmark wanted to ensure it was adequately serving their needs by providing products and services that would support a healthier lifestyle. Recognizing the increasing use of mobile and digital channels as the new standard in connecting with the world at large, Highmark aimed to create a mobile strategy that would simplify the health and wellness information process by providing actionable health information directly from members' phones, whenever and wherever they needed it.

THE CHALLENGE

Highmark was also looking for a more direct and customized way for members to locate in-network physicians. Highmark realized that the ability to immediately search for physicians via mobile devices gave it the opportunity to provide a better member experience. Members could quickly and conveniently take a more active role in their own health, as well as more easily find physicians. A mobile connection to members would also give Highmark the opportunity to gain a more intimate understanding of their members in order to customize messaging according to specific member needs.

THE SOLUTION

Highmark decided to implement A.D.A.M.'s user-friendly mHealth2Go iPhone mobile app specifically customized for their organization. This dynamic mobile health solution lets their members connect to the health information and local care they need, when they need it, by providing first aid information, searchable health topics, a symptom navigator, a GPS-enabled local healthcare search that includes doctors, hospitals, urgent care, retail clinics and pharmacies, and even information about exclusive Highmark member discounts.

Working with A.D.A.M., Highmark launched their privately labeled app called Health@Hand within the Apple iStore that allowed their members to:

• Get immediate access to the most frequently needed first aid information categorized into four areas-emergencies, bites and stings, minor injuries and poisoning-even without a wireless connection.
• Search for health-related information by topic or symptom. When searching by symptom, their app uses A.D.A.M.'s Symptom Navigator to provide customized views and health topics by gender and age. Search results include links to physician-developed and reviewed articles, as well as images.
• Locate in-network physicians and other healthcare facilities simply by searching within a specific mile radius using their current location or zip code. Search results highlight the closest facilities on Google Maps, as well as phone number, website, address, turn-by-turn directions and 360-degree photos of the facility's location.
• Receive immediate access to exclusive discounts on healthcare resources like vision providers, work out facilities, weight loss programs, senior care, and even recreation and travel while on the road.

THE RESULT

With their own privately labeled mobile health app, Highmark is now able to reach the growing market of mobile members through a tool that is always within their reach. Health@Hand provides Highmark's members with yet another resource for healthcare information that empowers them to better understand their healthcare options and make better decisions about their health.

"Health@Hand is a game-changing solution in our category that gives us a competitive advantage over the competition," said Steffan Johnson, senior consumerism lead, Highmark. "As the market leader in the health insurance space, mobile solutions like this help us flex our innovation muscle, enabling us to deliver a better user experience to our members. By giving our members a mobile solution that provides health information and a way to connect to plan physicians, Health@Hand helps us improve member satisfaction and drive new member acquisition."

Highmark launched its Health@Hand mobile app on the iPhone because it was the easiest way to reach a large number of its members with Apple's sizable installed base. Highmark also liked the iPhone's robust, user-friendly, media-rich experience, as well as the ability for consumers to leverage the functionality right out of the box.

"When we got serious about developing a mobile strategy, we looked at a number of healthcare solutions vendors, but it was A.D.A.M.'s overall value and speed to market that gave them the edge over the competition," continued Johnson. "Our implementation was simple, giving us the ability to customize the app to fit our members' needs. Plus, A.D.A.M.'s ability to accommodate to our requests on the fly gave us a great overall implementation experience."

Case Studies - The South Bend Clinic

CUSTOMER PROFILE

The South Bend Clinic employs a staff of 610 across five campuses in Indiana. Recognized nationally as a leading health care facility, the Clinic provides primary and specialized care to nearly 300,000 patients a year. Today, more than 80 physicians in 10 different locations serve the Michiana community, providing a range and quality of health care that is second to none.

www.southbendclinic.com supports multiple locations, physicians and providers throughout the system. With over 110,000 visits a year, the website serves as the online resource for all of the Clinic's services, events, news and research. The Clinic also uses the website to increase new patients and serve as a source of trusted information for its communities.

THE CHALLENGE

While undergoing a major physical transformation between 2007 and 2009, the Clinic realized it needed to revamp the website to better support its growing system and increasing services. With that in mind, the Clinic also wanted the website to:

• Attract more visitors, and ultimately new patients
• Engage patients with robust health information
• Promote key service lines with associated health information
• Highlight the Clinic as a local provider of trusted online health information
• Connect visitors to appropriate physicians and providers

While the website needed to continue to provide important information about facilities and services, the Clinic also wanted to expand it to provide a greater depth of consumer health information, especially as it related to specific, key service lines. The Clinic also wanted to use the website to better promote doctors and various providers, and make it as easy as possible for visitors to find the right care and connect to staff within multiple locations.

The system recognized that a robust library of current and accurate online health information could be used in multiple beneficial ways across the site. It needed a partner who could help identify those opportunities, and work with their online and marketing staff to fit the content seamlessly within the design of the new website. With limited staff and resources, ease of integration and implementation was a top priority in selecting the right partner.

THE SOLUTION

After looking at multiple consumer health information vendors and options, the South Bend Clinic chose A.D.A.M. as its online partner and licensed the following solutions:

• Eight A.D.A.M. Health Centers
• The Multimedia Encyclopedia
• The A.D.A.M. Symptom Navigator
• QuickSheets patient education

Because of the flexibility of the A.D.A.M. content, the Clinic was able to choose from multiple ways to display the A.D.A.M. information, and easily and quickly add the health information in a way that best worked for its strategic website plans. A.D.A.M. also accommodated their need to quickly add the information with minimal impact on the Clinic's resources. Working with the A.D.A.M. implementation team and its own dedicated A.D.A.M. client relationship manager, the Clinic revamped the home page to heavily promote the new consumer health information.

The A.D.A.M. Multimedia Encyclopedia added over 3,900 consumer health articles covering conditions, procedures, treatments, surgeries, tests and more. The encyclopedia further provided over 3,000 illustrations, diagrams and photos and over 120 multimedia videos to the site. Website visitors could now use the Clinic website to find the health information they needed from a local community resource they knew and could trust.

The system prominently highlighted each of the A.D.A.M. Health Centers, which include health information, illustrations, videos, tools, and news related to a key service line in one centralized location, on the home page within a rotating banner. Calling them "Lifetime of Care Centers", each center was also made available from a drop down menu in the top navigation. This allowed the system to promote specific service lines that were of importance right from the home page. Also included on the home page is the A.D.A.M. Symptom Navigator, an interactive and engaging way for visitors to find what symptoms may mean and easily connect to health articles relevant to their conditions.

Realizing that they could also use the health content within the website to promote doctors, the system went a step further and "wrapped" the A.D.A.M. centers with featured providers and quick links to find healthcare providers within the system. Located next to each Health Center is a provider listing that includes a photo, campus location, and phone number to connect immediately to make an appointment.

In addition, the Clinic also uses Service Line Mapping within health articles to highlight specific pages on the website based on article type, further driving people to connect with its services and physicians.

THE RESULT

Today the Clinic provides has established itself as the leading provider of consumer health information in its market, and now has the ability to promote specific service lines right from the website home page. The Clinic is also able to promote physicians from the Health Centers, as well as around the A.D.A.M. Multimedia Encyclopedia articles.

Since implementing the A.D.A.M. content on its new website, the Clinic has seen traffic increase by at least 10%, as well as a continued increase in the number of people contacting Clinic doctors. A.D.A.M pages also show a higher average visitor time on page.

"We found that integrating the health information with our web pages was very easy, and even more beneficial than we could have imagined," said Pam Parten, Product Manager of Web Applications. "Our staff appreciates that the website is there to not only educate people about their health, but to also connect them to our doctors and services. As a recognized name in healthcare, it was important that we had trusted, accurate and robust health information available to our community and patients."

In addition to the A.D.A.M. health information available on their website, the Clinic staff has also found the A.D.A.M. QuickSheets to be an essential and useful resource. The private labeled patient education solution covering diseases, conditions, surgeries, test and wellness is available online so Clinic staff can print them out for use during an appointment or email before office visits. The solution helps increase patient satisfaction through improved understanding, and saves caregiver time through more efficient visits. Physicians and staff can even include their own individual notes and contact information.

The Clinic continues to find additional ways to utilize the A.D.A.M. content on the site. In the future, the system plans to further integrate A.D.A.M. content with physician information by using the A.D.A.M. metadata to associate physicians with specific A.D.A.M. health articles. With 42 medical specialties mapped to every article in the Multimedia Encyclopedia and In-Depth Reports, it will be yet another way to help connect people looking for health information to Clinic doctors and services.