New York health insurer Excellus BlueCross BlueShield has partnered with Boston-based Wellframe to make Wellframe's mobile platform a part of its Health Care Improvement team. Excellus’s HCI team focuses on integrating care management and quality improvement programs to close gaps in care, and the partnership with Wellframe will help Excellus to achieve those goals through its mobile app. 

Wellframe’s platform includes a web-based clinician dashboard and a patient-facing mobile app and offers two-way messaging and care plans to amplify the reach of care capabilities within a health system. Wellframe offers a suite of customizable care plans that are designed to keep patients engaged via direct communication channels.

Jacob Sattelmair, CEO of Wellframe, told MobiHealthNews they partnership with Excellus will reduce the amount of time healthcare workers spend on administrative tasks, as well as make care of chronic conditions less of an interruption to patients' lives.

“Traditionally, the way that care management works, the nurse or clinical care worker does a clinical assessment and then they have to make multiple attempts at a call or a visit, and that might not always work out for the patient,” Sattelmair said. “It’s a high-friction way of interacting that is historically difficult.”

The Wellframe-Excellus BCBS partnership will serve the entire patient population, and especially enhance care for at-risk populations. Depending on the patient’s condition, they will interact with the app as frequently per day as necessary, but ultimately reduce the time spent by care coordinators managing each patient.

“They’ll go from getting a call every few weeks or months to just dealing with it for a few brief moments at a time,” Sattelmair said. “As an administrator, it patches up all that work they have to do in between and amplifies the reach of their care and connection. They can address a larger panel of patients with a higher touch.”

On Excellus BCBS’s side, integration of Wellframe’s platform will allow the health plan to promote population-based care improvement initiatives, including compliance with recommended care guidelines among the chronically ill, assisting patients during transitions of care, maintaining overall health and wellness, and improving outcomes.