Delivering personalized health care to consumers may be the future, but figuring out how to get there is still a challenge, a new national survey suggests.

The study, Employer Perspectives of Personalization in Digital Health, conducted by Castlight Health and the National Business Group on Health, looks at the results of nationwide survey of benefits leaders at large U.S. employers. The study explored how “personalization” is defined, perceived, and used when delivering health benefits.

“Our survey found that employers widely recognize the power of personalization, but most believe they are not tapping into its full potential,” said Maeve O'Meara, executive vice president of product and customer experience at Castlight Health. “Industry advances in machine learning and data liquidity have created new opportunities to tailor benefits to the individual employee and unlock additional value for employers.”

High expectations, low implementation

The survey, which polled company executives and HR leaders from 58 large U.S. employers, found that a strong majority of employers (84 percent) believe personalization has “high” or “very high” potential to match employees with the right health benefits and resources to meet their needs. But the implementation lags far behind—the survey found that 71 percent of respondents said they are tapping into that potential “a little bit” or not at all.

Most of the respondents say they are doing average at best in their personalization efforts. Zero percent gave themselves an “A” grade in this area, 13 percent rated a “B”, and 51 percent said they would give themselves a “C” grade. The “D” and “F” grades (25 percent and 11 percent) made up the rest of the responses.

What's being used, and what's up-and-coming

The most common way that employers use data to personalize health care is with eligibility files and claims data (86 percent and 67 percent, respectively) the study found. Less than half of employers said they use personalized data with health risk assessments and biometric screening (48 percent and 45 percent). Newer applications such as in-app questions, third party apps, and search data/history were at 31 percent, 22 percent, and 17 percent.

The survey also suggests that few employers have started using machine learning to automate their use of personalized data. “Only 35 percent of employers surveyed can send personalized communications to more than 5 user segments (e.g. gender, insurance carrier, location), suggesting that they are primarily delivering personalized content through manual segmentation,” the study said.

Another area where there is much potential for improvement is personalized messaging—the vast majority of those surveyed do not used personalized messaging, the report said. “As employers offer an ever-increasing number of programs, it's important to personalize messaging and program recommendations to avoid program fatigue and burdens,” the report said.

Recommendations for moving forward

The report suggested several areas where employers could make progress in personalizing health care benefits. The authors promoted using more data sources to track user behavior, benefits claims, biometric results, and activities. Investing in machine-learning to improve personalization is another recommendation. “By recognizing patterns in data, and continually learning, machine learning derives and delivers recommendations with minimal human intervention,” the study noted. “Health care, like many industries before it, is beginning to leverage these capabilities, enabling a movement away from manual segmentation and towards much more granular personalization.”

And as the above results suggest, more personalization in communication would move the ball forward, the study said. “With the right data sources and segmentation, personalization can be applied to any benefits program or vendor, to increase engagement by relevant populations. For example, nearly all employers surveyed offer a telehealth solution, yet only 23 percent of employers promote telehealth via personalized messaging,” the study said. With better-targeted messaging, employer can encourage more utilization by employees, and better health outcomes, the study concluded.

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Employers see value of personalized care but are coming up short on delivering

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