Now the same is happening in the benefits world, with every HR professional dealing with an email inbox riddled with pitches. But, very akin to the plight of marketing in the 2010s, it's almost impossible for employers to wade through it all in order to understand what works and what doesn't, or even worse, what's even needed. The truth is that employers are simply overwhelmed, including the largest with the most sophisticated teams.

So, what can employers do? How can those charged with stitching together health benefits packages ensure they're providing employees with reputable tools that are worth the spend and will be valued by those who need them? One of the most important things they can do is evaluate engagement.

Sustaining user engagement data

While it seems obvious that engagement data would be important, it's the "sustained" part where it gets tricky. It's not (as) hard to get the early adopters to sign up for a digital health tool because often it's as simple as an app download, but that usually is only the first step.. Getting people motivated and engaged to be proactive about their health over a period of time has always been a gargantuan task, but that becomes exponentially harder in a digital environment. In addition, getting after the early adopters, the next health population cohort to sign up is also much harder and often the reason why program adoption stalls in years 2 and 3.

It's easy to ignore just another app icon floating on your phone screen or swipe away a push notification that's buried in three others, so digital health tools must be smart — very smart — about the way they integrate into employees' lives. There are two very tried-and-true characteristics that any employer evaluating a digital health vendor should consider.

Fitting into employee "lifeflow" at critical times

What makes a great digital health application is not too different from what makes a great software-as-a-service (SaaS) tool. Successful SaaS vendors understand how to integrate into and improve your workflow, and the closer they are to a person's existing routines/tasks, the better.

For an employee managing health, it's somewhat similar. You can change behavior for the better when the change agent initially creates less disruption. So, it's incredibly important that a digital health service is empowered with features that fit into a person's day seamlessly and are available at the exact time they need it. In short, the most important features should be designed to fit directly into someone's routine while also having basically zero friction. If it's mental health, it should enable immediate access to the right resource. If it's diabetes, it should empower them to understand glucose triggers and levels over time. If it's weight management, it must be with them at every food decision.

Awareness for variance in employee profiles

While every employer sees value in a single employee getting healthier, it's still a numbers game. The ultimate goal is to drive down employer-wide health costs, which equates to driving better outcomes at a larger scale. That means digital health resources must work for a wide range of employee profiles across personality, cultural and socioeconomic factors. This also means that one size doesn't fit all. As you know, the best results can be achieved if you can smartly segment your health population and then offer each segment the best fitting solution. Within each segment then you want to offer each individual the most personalized experience possible.

Oftentimes digital health vendors are stacked with bells and whistles — from flashy health-logging and progress-tracking mechanisms – all wrapped in a sleek dashboard. These are no doubt important, too, but none of it is useful if the vendor can't adjust for the population segments and for the individuals' personal preferences in order to ultimately serve the entire population set.

For instance, multi-language settings are obviously hugely important, but having services and resources available in multiple languages is much rarer than you might think. Furthermore, different cultures have specific propensities for certain health conditions or have vastly different preferred diets, so employers should absolutely look to evaluate more culturally aware vendors.

Secondly, what good are support or coaching resources if they aren't essentially always-on? Many employers have significant parts of their workforces that are highly mobile, work multiple jobs, or are balancing busy work-family lives.

And, lastly, most HR pros know that every employee isn't a self-motivator who always holds themselves accountable. So, the most feature-rich digital health tool is limited if it doesn't have methods to engage users personally, understanding various personalities respond to different stimuli, encouragement tactics and goal-setting techniques.

Ultimately, the digital health revolution does have the potential to overhaul how employers provide health care support to their employees, but for the foreseeable future the landscape is going to get even more crowded and confusing. You can expect to continue to be bombarded 50 ways to Sunday with pitches to "take control of your health care spends." For those deciding which routes to go, the trick is to not become paralyzed by the choices and save yourself some time by looking for engagement metrics upfront.

Read more: 

• A digital health ecosystem for COVID-19 and beyond
• Digital technology and health insurance: Creating trust and building relationships
• Consumer demand booming for digital health products