Background
The Optimal Heart Attack and Stroke Prevention Center is a concierge medical practice in Scottsdale, AZ, focusing exclusively on prevention and reversal of cardiovascular diseases.
Co-owner, Dr. Steve Feyrer-Melk, serves as the lead Health Coach responsible for guiding 175 patients on a journey of improving lifestyle behaviors as they relate to health. This critical component of the practice is strongly supported by Preventive Cardiologist and co-owner Dr. Anne-Marie Feyrer-Melk.
She sees the role of Health Coaching as a significant component of the program and a key factor for increased patient satisfaction and renewal of memberships.
Health coaches like Steve have begun trying to better incorporate lifestyle trackers and other health tracking technologies into their care model to expand their reach and increase touch points with members.
The Need
Realizing the value in lifestyle data for the patient experience, Steve had begun incorporating lifestyle tracking by creating Fitbit accounts for all of his patients.
Unfortunately, before using Nudge and Nudge Coach, Steve was forced to manually sign into the separate Fitbit accounts of each individual patient to access their information.
Being responsible for usernames and passwords, and signing in and out of each patient's individual accounts presented significant logistical challenges, plus significant extra time and effort.
Also, these consumer platforms are not designed to be HIPAA-compliant, which brought up security concerns for Steve, and are not laid out for use with a health professional, requiring Steve to do extra work toggling through the data to find actionable bits.
How Nudge Coach Has Helped The OHC:
Dr. Steve is currently managing roughly 70 patients with Nudge Coach. The platform has allowed him to easily maintain regular touch-points with these and all of the practice's members in a HIPAA secure manner.
He can easily access important lifestyle information all within a couple hours of work each week. In conjunction with their other great services, the OHC has been able to increase membership by over 15% since beginning their program with Nudge Coach.
Although we haven't conducted any official surveys yet, Dr. Steve has plenty of reasons to believe patient satisfaction is at an all-time high. Here are just a few of the messages that patients have sent to Steve through their Nudge App so far during this program:
"Yes, the balance in my score has taken some effort but now it is part of my life. Not bad for a 67 year-old."
"You and Dr. AMFM are the only ones who pushed me to take actions. I'm doing the work for me and enjoy more each day, but you two have to take a huge amount of the credit and total appreciation from me."
"By the way, thank you for taking the time to look at my profile and message me. This app has really helped me drink more water and eat more veggies!"
"Wow, I thought I was getting fruit daily but now I see that is not true. I now make sure I bring at least one piece of fruit to work each day. Thanks for keeping an eye on me!"
"It is absolutely wonderful to be walking so much every day. What a blessing. Trying to get back in the gym this week depending on my back. Still fighting insomnia but overall feel as if I'm on the right road. Thank you."
"Ok, I feel great now. Thanks for watching me. I never thought I would be able to build up to 30 min of high [intensity] activity. Thanks for the nudge."
