MRT Innovations in Social Determinants of Health Initiative

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Q1 Please provide your contact information below.

Name

Title and Organization

Address

City/Town

State/Province

ZIP/Postal Code

Email Address

Phone Number

Yetunde Duro–Emanuel

Founder, The WellBox Project

39 Granite St #3L A

Brooklyn

NY

11207

yettyemanuel@gmail.com

734–732–3248


Q2 Please describe your company or organizations overall goals and mission.

The WellBox is an engagement engine connecting people with the resources necessary to live their healthiest lives. Through an innovative system combining consumer experience, exclusive access to community–based health services and products, and comprehensive health outcomes analytics, WellBox introduces a refreshed approach to consumerism in healthcare. The journey begins when individuals determine their personalized health and wellness goals using a proprietary assessment that evaluates where they fall within "6 Dimensions of Wellness": Emotional, Physical, Social, Financial, Creative, and Environmental wellness.

Completion of this interactive assessment launches participants into membership, where they gain access to a customized bimonthly subscription plan which combines services that align with their personal goals + motivations. Services are made easily accessible and affordable by strategic partnerships between WellBox and wellness–focused vendors, and this results in subsidized costs to the consumer. These savings are passed on whether they purchase bimonthly membership directly, or it is subsidized by an affiliated group such as an employer or insurer. Services and products are either physical (i.e. a package containing vitamins or infant food samples) or digital (i.e. a pass to a fitness program, a telemedicine visit, or a discount on heart healthy groceries). In both cases, these deliverables are presented alongside related educational materials and the necessary call to action. A members´ interactions with each service become a part of their journey, and with the integration of clinical data, engagement with health services can be tracked and measured over time.

WellBox is unique in two distinct ways, the first being that all services provided are directly tied to evidence based outcomes that improve overall wellness and ultimately reduce the overall cost of care over time. Secondly, engagement within the platform creates invaluable psychographic data that, when combined with demographics and clinical outcomes, will result in sophisticated health consumer engagement analytics.


Q3 Please indicate which category your organization falls under.

Technology Solutions,
Community Based Organization


Q4 Innovation Executive Summary. Please describe the innovation, and how it addresses the social determinants of health. Please identify how the innovation addresses the 6 innovation criteria (i.e. ROI, scalability, feasibility, evidence–based support for innovation, relevance to the Medicaid population and speed to market).

The appeal of WellBox is its ability to be translate easily to the unique healthcare access and education needs of virtually any community, as it is driven directly by resource partnerships specific to the community it serves. When a version of WellBox was initially introduced in Ghana, West Africa in 2013, the initiative was praised by government leaders, care providers, and community–based NGOs alike as being a "win–win–win" solution for consumers, care providers, and government–sponsored insurance programs alike, because of its ability to bridge the gaps between these entities and address pain points such as geographic care provider shortages, costs/logistics of effectively disseminating public health education resources, and consumer empowerment when seeking health services.

The current model is based in the U.S., however the underlying impact is similar. The digital based platform can be scaled to any community so long as partnerships that are demographically relevant and geographically accessible are in place. Once the digital platform is established, the speed to market depends on the implementation of these partnerships. The digital platform and assessment will be in testing by August 2018, with the first pilot to be in place for Fall 2018. Beyond the platform, members are engaged through text and email as well, with a desired future state including a mobile application. The pilot team is working to secure resources for backend analytics and UI/UX design at this time.

Significant opportunity exists for the WellBox to be an extraordinary vehicle to expanding the preventive health initiatives commonly carried out by insurers or state entities for the communities they serve, similar to the New York Parks Department´s 2017 sunscreen initiative, or a southwestern Ohio–based managed care plan´s 2016 effort to get basic toiletries to pockets of their Medicaid population in need at no cost to the member. A great advantage with a WellBox partnership is the opportunity to ensure that these programs not only reach more New Yorkers, but that they also have a robust data source supporting them.

It is most desirable to do a pilot with Medicaid populations for a variety of reasons. Working with Medicaid members presents an opportunity for a state/managed care driven pilot that promises to redefine the way individuals engage with healthcare throughout the continuum, and ultimately reduce state spending through meaningful engagement. This presents the opportunity for significant return on the investment of subsidizing the member cost through decreased medical costs, as well as increased insight on member segments and behaviors through analytics. Additional research suggests this would be of great value to the consumer as well, as they begin to experience greater value in their health plans when they can positively interact with them on a day to day basis. This perception of value especially translates when Medicare members churn into other insurance products offered.

Currently, a pilot is being prepared for a Brooklyn neighborhood that will address access to food and nutrition resources by leveraging and centralizing digital/mobile engagement, optimize access to community fitness classes, engage families and individuals with high–quality programming on healthy food preparation, and connecting potential customers with local health and wellness vendors.


Q5 Was your innovation implemented? If so, please explain when, the number of people impacted, and the results.

Yes (please specify when and the estimated number of people impacted):

No


Q6 Please identify the SDH Domain that your innovation addresses. (Select all that apply.)

Social and Community Context

Health and Health Care

Neighborhood and Environment


Q7 I give the Department of Health the right to share the information submitted in this application publicly (for example: on the DOH website). I understand that there is no monetary reward/reimbursement for my submission or for attending the summit should my innovation be selected.

I consent to have my innovation shared