Simplyhealth: A Case Study
Helping Customers Find the Right Treatment with an AI-Powered Medical Assessment
As part of an ambitious strategy to improve health outcomes and customer satisfaction, Simplyhealth teamed up with Healthily to use AI to improve navigation to appropriate services.
Objectives
The three-month pilot saw nearly 2000 Simplyhealth members who wanted to book a telemedicine appointment, use the Healthily AI Medical Assessment to guide them. The objectives of the trial were to:
Help members find the most appropriate care for their symptoms
Provide 24/7 personalised access to health navigation
Reduce need for telemedicine appointments if other services, such as face-to-face (F2F) appointments, are more appropriate
Direct members to more appropriate and beneficial services
Prevent duplicate appointments, which waste members’ time.
Impact
The impact of the technology was immediate and compelling:
82% of members who started the assessment completed it
50% of members recommended self-care did not book a telemedicine appointment
55% of members recommended F2F did not book a virtual or telemedicine appointment
46% of members recommended other Simplyhealth services did not book a telemedicine appointment.
Partnership
The success of the pilot was based on collaboration between medical and management teams. Both Simplyhealth and Healthily recognised this was not a technology pilot. Instead, both sides focused on the behaviour change AI technology can facilitate when customers are given the personalised information they need to make the best health decision.
In the early stages of the partnership, Healthily was able to demonstrate through clinical scenarios that its AI offered reliable clinical assessments, and demonstrated the accuracy and safety levels that Healthily clinicians and insurers were willing to stand by.
The pilot’s success was based on early stakeholder engagement, executive sponsorship, defined KPIs, a dedicated client success manager, and proactive marketing to patients.
Challenges
The key challenges that the pilot had to overcome included:
How to give Simplyhealth members the knowledge and confidence required to access the right care at the right time = Confidence
How to convince members that they can self-manage = Knowledge
How to collect information quickly from members to help streamline the service and improve access = Speed.
Research Base
Healthily was able to overcome these challenges due to its years of research and depth of insight into reducing anxiety and changing members' intended actions.
Confidence = Simplyhealth was reassured with independent research that showed Healthily can pick the safest service for a customer 97% of the time¹
Knowledge = Healthily has a comprehensive library of medically validated content geared to helping users understand risks and treatment options
Speed = 8 years of testing the Healthily AI Medical Assessment on more than 3 million users has honed the average assessment time to 180 seconds. Independent analysis by Tel Aviv University² has confirmed that Healthily asks the most pertinent health questions.
Main takeaways
The pilot study has shown that implementing an AI-powered solution for healthcare demand management can have a significant impact on:
Commercial value – a reduction in spend on GP consultations due to more appropriate signposting
Customer experience – enhanced customer satisfaction
Product value – navigational UX to drive engagement of relevant services, with insights feeding into a future roadmap
Customer value – better awareness of available services, getting to the right service first time, and improved user experience
Clinical value – insights into member medical needs plus improved clinical safety to support appropriate service engagement, while optimising healthcare journeys.
Conclusion
Easy-to-use and scalable, the Healthily AI Medical Assessment proved it could streamline Simplyhealth’s healthcare pathways, and enhance quality and value for members, while delivering significant cost savings.
Simplyhealth stated:
“Working with Healthily has been a real eye-opener on how we can support our customers to reach the most appropriate services without wasting time and potentially money on suboptimal service choices. We're excited to see what our future partnership will bring.”