Walmart Drives Consumer Health Engagement Through Partnerships with HumanaVitality & SoloHealth
November 26, 2012 
SoloHealth Station
Recently, Walmart announced new collaborations in the Health & Wellness space; extending Humana’s Vitality Program to reward members for healthy eating and bringing a SoloHealth station into select stores for health screenings and assessments.
Walmart & HumanaVitality- “Vitality HealthyFood” Program
Last month, Walmart collaborated with Humana to launch “Vitality HealthyFood”, a “first of its kind healthier food program” which incentivizes HumanaVitality members to make healthier food choices.
“We are dedicated to exploring innovative ways to bring down the cost of healthcare in America. This program offers a new way to help us accomplish this goal”, shares Danit Marquardt, a Walmart spokesperson.
Over a million members of the HumanaVitality program receive a 5% savings for buying healthy foods and beverages at Walmart with the ‘Great for You’ icon. This program is designed to inspire Americans to eat well and increase their awareness around healthy, affordable food and beverages.
Humana members interested in participating in the program sign up online. After completing a health assessment, members receive a Vitality HealthyFood Shopping Card to begin saving on ‘Great For You’ items throughout Walmart stores. The shopping card leverages gift card technology at the point of sale, but also captures transaction details for tracking the reward and reinforcing healthy behaviors when a member views their participation in the program online.
“We ran focus groups with our members and talked about ways to improve their wellness. We heard a strong interest in a ‘supportive health plan making healthy foods more available’ ”, explains Stuart Slutzky, Chief of Product Innovation, HumanaVitality. ”We modeled this Vitality HealthyFood program after a similar, successful program run by Discovery Vitality in South Africa, with whom Humana originally partnered with on the joint venture to develop HumanaVitality. “We have purposely designed the program to be personal and relevant to each person and have issued separate program cards to track the shopping behavior of each adult”, adds Slutzky.
Currently, program members can view a list of the items purchased through the program and the savings. “In the future, we are looking to bring more value to the program with recommended recipes which tie- in with the member’s health issues and with the capability to view a shopping list with the ‘Great For You’ items”, describes Slutzky.
With insurance exchanges around the corner, Humana is motivated to partner with an innovative retailer to build consumer awareness and interest in their brand as well as better serve their existing plan members.
Walmart & SoloHealth – Health Station with Free Assessment & Screenings
At select Walmart stores throughout the country, shoppers in the pharmacy area are invited by the virtual assistant on the SoloHealth kiosk to screen their vision, measure their blood pressure, weight and body mass index and take a free health assessment.
Sara, a Walmart shopper, sits down at the kiosk and touches the screen. She answers a series of demographic and healthcare related questions about her age, gender, ethnicity, lifestyle and behavior to make her experience more relevant. Since she has hypertension, Sara uses the kiosk to measure and capture her blood pressure and body mass index and then learns what these measures mean through educational content and videos. Then Sara reads about what to do next and who to contact with a list of accredited local clinicians either within or nearby the Walmart store. “We are trying to provide access and convenience to help consumers identify health issues and then direct them to the appropriate health experts for care”, explains Bart Foster, CEO of SoloHealth.
When Sara is done with her assessment and screenings, she has the opportunity to either save her information for a future in store kiosk visit, or she can receive her information via email, text or online. “We enable her to take a picture of a QR code on the kiosk screen to access the online area at any time”, describes Foster.
Any Walmart shopper in these select stores can use the HIPPA compliant SoloHealth station to get support for their hypertension or other health issues such obesity. “We will be rolling out a pain management module next, that will walk a user through various questions to help identify pain and provide educational health information”, adds Foster.
“From our experience with the SoloHealth Station in other retailers across our network, consumers typically spend over four minutes interacting with the station and about 38% return to use the kiosk a second time”, Foster shares.
The SoloHealth station, also in Sam’s Club stores, enables shoppers to self -serve. The consumer’s strong interest in self- service and having access to their own health information is a key trend that Accenture confirmed in their Connected Health Pulse Survey earlier this year.
Great for Walmart, Their Health Partners & Consumers
By strengthening their positioning as a Health & Wellness destination, Walmart has an opportunity to build a relationship with their shoppers and generate sales for relevant products and services.
Walmart has so much to offer healthcare companies at the same time. While shopping in their store pharmacy, consumers have a healthcare mindset which is a perfect time to help support their care needs. As B.J Fogg, founder of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University espouses, why not put health behavior triggers right into the consumer’s path to motivate positive behavior change?
Imagine the value to the shopper who sits down to measure their blood pressure at the SoloHealth station, learns that he has hypertension and is directed to a nearby clinician. Or think about the Humana member who is determined to eat more healthy and is now incentivized through the HumanaVitality Program to purchase more nutritious food for her family.
As Walmart presents more opportunities for better health to their shoppers, it is a win-win all the way around.
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