SSM Health became partners in their community's health by making daily exercise a fun, new habit.
Overview
SSM Health is one of the largest health systems in the Midwest. As part of their Affordable Care Act requirements, SSM must perform a Community Health Needs Assessment to determine opportunities for improving public health in their area. Essentially, SSM wanted to know, “How do we partner with our patients to proactively manage health needs rather than reactively respond after they become sick?” SSM’s assessment showed obesity was a top area for needed improvement in the community.
Total Users
567
Client Since
2019
Challenges Run
1
Key Features Used
Stick to it! Challenge
SSM used our Stick to it! challenge mode to nudge participants towards a 30 active minutes per day exercise routine. Stick to it! was particularly effective for a group of participants with a wide range of fitness levels, as it doesn’t punish users for occasionally missing their goal. Instead, participants are rewarded and celebrated for every day they did achieve their goal, regardless if they missed a few earlier in the week. This was key to maintaining motivation and engagement with a group of participants that may have been new to regular exercise.
Content
SSM took full advantage of MoveSpring’s content feature that allows clients to upload their own articles, videos, or posts. They saw content as a way to keep participants motivated and as an opportunity to educate. SSM posted three times per week: Motivational Monday, Wellness Wednesday, and Fit Friday. They created custom videos with their physicians who provided simple health tips and personal words of encouragement. “We’re always looking for new ways to market our physicians so we can promote access to care, another key part of our ACA needs assessment,” the SSM admin said.
MoveSpring Rewards Strategy
Among the many resources provided to our admins, MoveSpring offers a detailed Rewards Strategy to help foster an effective and engaging prize plan. This helps steer clients away from rewarding just the top stepper, which usually leads to cheating and lower engagement among users who will never achieve marathon-worthy step averages. SSM greatly benefitted from this resource and was able to avoid the top stepper pitfall.
Instead, SSM used a raffle model for determining prize winners. For every 5 days participants achieved 30 active minutes or more, they received one entry into the raffle. Participants were able to accumulate a total of 6 entries during the 42 day challenge. If you reached 30 active minutes every day of the challenge, you could earn a bonus 7th entry.
At the end of the challenge, the SSM admin team pulled winners from the raffle. “Everybody was really excited who won. All three winners were really active and had many entries in the raffle.”
Having enticing prizes also helped maintain motivation. Prizes included a fitness mirror that turns into a virtual fitness studio, an apartment-friendly collapsible treadmill, and a one-year gym membership.
Visibility in the community
Local news heard about the SSM initiative and featured their challenge in a news segment. Check it out:
Results
MoveSpring enabled SSM to uphold the high standard of community care mandated under the ACA. They were able to identify and fulfill needs in their community by providing an inclusive platform that promoted a key form of preventative care: daily exercise. Additionally, they were able to address a second critical need in the community: access to care.
© Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved.