At the core of health coaching is the communication between Health Coach and client.
Without a smooth and steady flow of information, success will be limited and the likelihood of less than ideal outcomes is high.
The challenges with communication begin with the ability of the Health Coach to obtain valid and accurate data fromt their clients. Health coaches rely heavily on lengthy and complicated logs or one-on-one interviews that require individuals to recall the sum of their past behaviors.
Take a second and try to paint a detailed picture of your diet, exercise and nutrition just over the past week. This type of data collection rarely results in accurate information. Because of the many holes in this type of communication, the Health Coach is developing programming and advice based on information that is neither complete nor accurate.
Communication of Feedback & Questions
The second core challenge in the communication process is how to efficiently communicate ideas back-and-forth throughout the relationship. Basically, how can we make stay connected as easy and efficient as possible for both parties. Utilizing emails, text messages, medical web portals, etc. is complicated and adds a step that deters communication on one side or the other.
My email has a lot more going on in it than just my clients' questions, and that makes it extremely difficult to keep organized and make sure I'm always communicating effectively with each one of them. These less targeted modes of messaging increase the time required to effectively interact with individual clients, but can also lead to messages getting lost in the flow of other information.
This is why not having a dedicated messaging system that allows for the safe free-flow of information between Health Coach and clients is an important problem that should be solved.
So What is the Answer? It Can Be Complicated
If the success of a patient or client is based on behavior change that can be guided and strengthened through communication by the Health Coach, it is imperative that a well thought out plan is put into place within the health coaching environment. Unfortunately this sounds simpler than it is in practice.
Analyzing each and every different lifestyle app used by your clients is nearly impossible. This type of system would require you to obtain usernames and passwords from each client on each system, log into their account individually, learn the system they use, and analyze the details.
This is extremely cumbersome and also requires this task to be completed multiple times so you are able to maintain consistent information about that individual. Moreover, you would have to transcribe that information onto another medium in order to maintain records on this client.
For communication itself, utilization of emails or text messaging is not secure and requires you to the navigate back and forth between data source and communication mode that is used by each individual client. As a result you have a complicated and inefficient system.
With the exception of the Nudge Health Coach dashboard in combination with the Nudge consumer app, no other Health Coach-related system that integrates individuals using multiple apps is available.
Even more impressive is the ability to message within the Health Coach Dashboard directly to the client's Nudge app on their smart phone. This system meets all the needs required for effective Health Coach communication and saves time energy and money.
