Enhancing Patient Care Through “Hospital-in-a-Box” Digital Health Solutions

Being sick or recovering from an illness is challenging enough — even more so when that illness is chronic. The CDC estimates that 60 percent of people living in the US have at least one chronic illness, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, or diabetes. Long-term diseases are the leading causes of death, disability, and high costs of care.

In the face of healthcare staffing shortages, rising administrative complexities, and increasingly expensive long-term care facilities (all exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic), what I call a “digital hospital-in-a-box” is the solution to improving the patient care journey and overall customer experience.

Elevating Patient Care With More Convenient Health Technology, Powered by Adobe Experience Cloud

Whether that “box” is a wearable like Apple Vision Pro or a voice-enabled smart home assistant, digital health applications prioritizing convenience, portability, and patient-provider connection create more delightful experiences for individuals who need complex care.

But why stop there? When we add Adobe Experience Cloud capabilities to hospital-in-a-box digital products, we can unlock endless new use cases for highly efficient, personalized, and superior experiences in digital health.

Here are ways we’re already shipping digital health solutions built for ease of use and connection — and how Adobe helps us keep innovating on products already transforming health and wellness for millions of patients.

Vocable: Bespoke Conversational AI Personalizes AAC Devices

Nearly 18 million adults in the US experience difficulty speaking due to stroke, trauma, diseases like MS or ALS, hospital intubation, and more. Yet augmentative and alternative communication devices (AAC) can be bulky, outdated, and expensive.

That’s why we built Vocable, one of our most powerful hospital-in-a-box solutions. It’s a free, conversational AI mobile platform allowing non-verbal users to communicate via subtle head movements and text-to-speech.

Vocable is also one of the first apps optimized for Apple Vision Pro (AVP), available on the Vision Pro App Store. WillowTree Principal Practice Advisor Andrew Carter describes Vision Pro’s enhanced capabilities for speech-impaired Vocable users, such as increased accessibility, more conversational features, and seamless interactions between physical and digital environments. Vocable earned a Webby for best experimental and innovative app and an honorable mention in the Webby’s best practices category.

When we leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms, and Adobe Experience Cloud data-driven personalization to enhance the Vocable experience, we create more enjoyable and efficient experiences for our speech-impaired users.

Adobe Experience Platform humanizes conversational AI

By integrating Adobe Personalized Insights and Engagement products into the Vocable app (or any conversational AI-driven experience), we can unlock even greater ease of use and delight throughout the digital health and patient care journey:

• Customer Journey Analytics stitches and sequences user data to provide personalized insights into Vocable users’ next-best actions (e.g., data shows that this individual user typically asks a caregiver for a blanket and pillow after they eat dinner, so Vocable would know to prompt the user accordingly).
• Real-Time CDP accounts for a holistic view of Vocable users’ real-time preferences based on first-party, AI, behavioral, and offline data (e.g., a Vocable user stops using the app before bedtime, so the app automatically silences notifications after a specific time).
• Journey Optimizer could transform Vocable into a messaging and outreach framework (e.g., Vocable users could send and receive in-app, AI-driven email communications, navigated via head tracking or body movement)

Ease-of-use coupled with Adobe Experience Cloud capabilities enhance connection, communication, and delight for our speech-impaired users.

Dexcom: how companion apps for wearables can improve patient care

Through our partnership with Dexcom, we delivered similarly efficient and enjoyable experiences for adults with diabetes who use Dexcom’s G7 continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system. The G7 is a sensor and transmitter that monitors glucose levels and eliminates the need for finger sticks.

Supporting the Dexcom G7 is an FDA-approved, innovative companion app designed and developed by WillowTree. Through continuous monitoring and real-time alerts, our app improves peace of mind for those with diabetes, their families, and their caregivers: 96 percent of Dexcom G7 users report that the system is easy to use.

Moreover, zero bug tolerance is a non-negotiable in consumer health applications relying on real-time communication with wearables. To accomplish this, we accelerated development of the companion app for Dexcom’s G7 CGM system for diabetes while significantly improving testing cycles to help navigate FDA approvals. Our work created a 77% reduction in testing time due to automation efforts.

Using the Adobe Experience Cloud, we can further optimize patient care experience in Dexcom’s companion app.

Imagining a future state for Dexcom’s G7 Continuous Glucose Monitoring System app

Here’s how the Adobe ecosystem could enhance Dexcom’s app experience:

• First, we’d use Real-Time CDP to build profiles in the Dexcom companion application based on users’ interactions, behaviors, and preferences.
• This data would then activate in-app personalized experiences using Adobe Experience Platform.
• Next, we could coordinate outbound messages to users’ care providers (or other individuals in the users’ network) with the help of Adobe Journey Optimizer.
• Finally, gathering data from all of these interactions and integrating it into Customer Journey Analytics would provide advanced reporting on any points of friction and fallout on the Dexcom app and help us better plan for app maintenance, as needed.

Adobe presents a unique opportunity to make a highly satisfactory digital patient care and customer experience even more cohesive and powerful.

Locus Health: improving in-home healthcare through efficient patient-provider communication

Easing the transition from in-hospital to at-home care is essential for patients with chronic conditions. When obstacles such as communication or knowledge gaps emerge, we see adverse patient outcomes, like hospital readmission.

We partnered with Locus Health to support the design and development of a customized remote monitoring and engagement platform that facilitates meaningful connections between patients and their clinical care teams. Locus’ interface and simple data entry process seamlessly integrate with any electronic medical record (EMR) system, enabling care teams to efficiently manage and ultimately improve health outcomes for large groups of patients.

Webby also noticed our Locus Health app: our work notched an honorable mention for best health, wellness, and fitness app and a nomination for best visual design. And Apple featured the experience in a healthcare case study.

Looking at the Adobe ecosystem once more, we might imagine how Adobe could enhance remote monitoring products like Locus Health, with features such as: 

How Adobe Experience Cloud elevates remote monitoring

• Adobe Experience Manager Sites & Assets could provide a cohesive foundation and guidelines for providers’ and patients’ tablet and laptop experiences by delivering relevant content and images in context (e.g., facilitating seamless transitions and consistent experiences for a doctor reviewing image results while she’s using her phone vs. sitting at a desktop).
• Integrating Locus Health’s single-page application into Adobe Journey Optimizer would facilitate critical communication between provider and patient or caregiver (e.g., new parents who need to urgently communicate their premature baby’s sudden weight loss or difficulty eating).
• We can also utilize Adobe Target to personalize the experience based on segments, preferences, etc. (e.g., different user journeys based on provider specialty or type of at-home care needed for a patient).
• Delivering superior at-home patient care requires personalization and efficiency to ease the transition for vulnerable populations returning from cardiac rehab, oncology, transplants, and intensive care units.

Let’s reimagine your digital health solutions

There’s far more work to be done to facilitate the most connected and convenient digital experiences possible for our patients.

Connect with WillowTree’s digital health experts at ViVE Booth 1118. Or, if you’re not going to ViVE, reach out to learn more.