Choosing the Best Health Strategy for Your Programs: Tech-Enabled Wellness vs Virtual Care

Due to technological advances and pandemic protocols, traditional on-premises provider visits are no longer required to access quality care, causing seismic shifts in the healthcare industry. Demonstrating this, the virtual wellness economy expanded from $4.6 trillion in 2020 to $6.3 trillion by the end of 2023. And the sector is showing no sign of slowing down. The digital health service market is projected to grow from $8.7 billion in 2023 to approximately $50.9 billion by 2032.   

In this blog, we will explore the two pillars of virtual care strategy: wellness versus virtual care and digital health. Although both are essential to maintain overall well-being, their approaches vary. Wellness can be likened to a gym membership – proactive, consistent effort to stay fit and prevent injury. Digital health is more like a physical therapist – a solution-based provider offering specialized care pursuing clinical outcomes measures. But these are simplified assessments. At Solera Health, virtual care offerings include consistent monitoring to gain data driven insights, while informing tailored solutions for improved health outcomes.

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This is Wellness

Wellness is a holistic, proactive approach to overall health and fitness, emphasizing prevention and lifestyle management rather than clinically treating specific medical conditions. Programs often include nutrition, fitness, stress management, tobacco cessation and mental health. These programs are hard to attribute specific clinical outcomes and cost savings, making it difficult for employers and health plans to track effectiveness beyond engagement metrics.

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This is Virtual Care

In contrast, virtual care and digital health encompass a broad range of technologies designed to enhance healthcare delivery and improve patient outcomes. While wellness focuses on prevention and lifestyle change, digital health addresses continuity of care, access to specialists, personalized advice, connected monitoring devices, remote treatment options, and often prescribing capabilities.

Unlike telemedicine, virtual care offers a multi-disciplinary care model to treat and manage chronic and specialty conditions.  Virtual care includes the use of wearable devices and health apps that provide medication reminders, chronic disease management and mental health support. More complex tools include AI and machine learning systems for clinical decision support, digital therapeutics and connected medical devices that offer real-time feedback, all of which are essential for early intervention to prevent acute issues. These technologies work together to create a data-driven, personalized regimen that is more accessible and sometimes more comprehensive than brick and mortar care.

‍The Key Differences

While both are beneficial, the fundamental difference between wellness and virtual care is the approach. Wellness focuses on preventative measures and lifestyle changes for overall health maintenance. For example, a patient who improves their diet, engages in regular exercise, and manages stress is more likely to experience better long-term outcomes. Wellness strategies help create healthy changes, but fail to provide the targeted, data-driven interventions needed in more complex health situations.

Virtual care offers timely solutions and remote care when health matters arise, along with the consistent monitoring of existing conditions to prevent acute issues. For instance, an individual with chronic pain or a recent injury can use tools like telemedicine along with wearable devices to receive immediate feedback, monitor and track their progress.

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Why Can’t We Have Both? 

Through its on-benefit health management model,Solera combines wellness strategies with digital health technologies to providea comprehensive, cost-effective solution for improving long-term outcomes. 

According to this analysis, a network-wide deployment of virtual care can reduce medical spend by 2.3% to 3.1%. These savings were made possible by reimbursing on-benefit, reducing on-premises care and improving the management of chronic conditions. Plus, Solera’s pay-for-performance model aligns incentives between digital health solutions and the health plan or employer, reimbursed only for engagement milestones and cost reduction - meaning all constituents are in alignment. Solera and its health partners only do well if the participant does well.

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Conclusion

By offering wellness and digital health services, Solera provides best-fit solutions for improving patient outcomes and reducing medical costs. Their integrated programs foster sustainable habit formation, along with increasingly efficient, data-driven care. As the first on-benefit, unified digital platform, Solera is a leader in health solution curation, saving organizations time and money while helping improve the lives of individuals.

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Set up a consultation to learn how Solera's digital health delivery platform can transform your wellness program into a cost-saving healthcare tool designed to drive better clinical outcomes.