Customized, Intuitive Solutions Ensure Engagement

There are plenty of online behavioral health programs with solid clinical foundations. The reason they fall short is because people don’t use them, and those that do generally lose interest quickly. As with all health care demand management programs, engagement is both critical and difficult to achieve. Through technology developed in partnership with the National Science Foundation, and years spent building and re-building programs for the military, Prevail has solved the engagement puzzle. Prevail’s program model comprises many elements that operate in concert, but the key factors driving success are:

• Dynamic customization at the individual level: behavioral health programs resonate when they are personally relevant, and there is no such thing as a generic person. Prevail’s programs achieve personal relevance through adapting based on each user’s demographics and specific symptoms or conditions. The web-based platform at the core of the model takes in information, builds user profiles, and then creates tailored program experiences customized not just in terms of content but also look and feel.
• Engaging content: Prevail’s e-learning lessons are not built using the traditional text-based approach. The company’s proprietary content development process results in lessons that feature narration, graphics, and animation. And these lessons don’t take the usual clinical tone – they use humor and speak to users in their own language.
• Systematic, intuitive program design: when people receive face-to-face care, they don’t have to use complicated tools or make pro-active decisions. Prevail’s programs mimic this experience, employing a simple, usable interface and generating structured, level-based programs with clearly defined tasks to complete.
• Structured real-time interactions: there is no substitute for live interaction in creating user engagement. Prevail has developed technology that allows scalable, controlled instant message conversations between Prevail “peer coaches” and program users.