iA Financial Group is launching a pilot project to help benefits plan members with medication adherence.
The Quebec City-based insurer will offer access to mobile app MedHelper to a few thousand plan members who are taking three or more medications on a daily basis.
The plan members can import the list of drugs they take into the app and set a schedule for the frequency and time of day they take the medications. MedHelper then sends notifications when it’s time to take a dose. Users can tell the app they’re taking their medication, ask for a reminder later in the day if they’re busy, or say they’re not taking it.
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The app tracks plan members’ adherence over days or months based on their responses to the prompts and then creates reports to send to their physicians. They can also use the app to manage their medication renewals, medical appointments and add other activities that relate to their medical treatment, such as an appointment with a non-medical health professional.
The goal of the pilot, which is expected to run for three or four months, is to determine whether plan members will engage with the app, says Andrée-Anne Bourgeois, director of products, communications and marketing for IA’s group benefits and retirement solutions group.
“We see great value in this. We’ve tested it ourselves, but we wanted to test among our participants to see if they are interested and engaging with their well-being and adopting good habits or even changing their habits.”
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If the project is successful, the insurer will expand the app to all plan members and may begin targeting non-adherent members, identified through the app’s reports, with personalized communication and additional services, says Bourgeois.
“We’ll start by [asking], ‘Are they interested in using the app?’ and then after that it’s the first step into other services around drug adherence.”