Publicis Health has partnered with the consumer experience experts at League to explore ways to help patients manage their own health. The alliance brings together Publicis’ clinical data and League’s digital infrastructure to try to empower people to become actively engaged in their healthcare.
League is the developer of a digital health platform that is designed to help providers improve patient engagement and retention, while also offering other benefits to payers and employers. Partners such as the healthcare services provider Highmark Health have built on the platform to bring together the sea of different elements patients engage with to access care into a single offering.
Publicis, which supports healthcare marketing and communications through units such as Digitas Health and Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, sees value in pairing the platform with its data and design capabilities. Michael Serbinis, founder and CEO of League, set out what the newly minted partners aim to achieve.
“Together we'll enable a new generation of digital healthcare experiences—accessible, truly designed for meaningful and on-going engagement, with 1:1 personalization and unconstrained by the four walls of a hospital or doctor's office,” Serbinis said in a statement.
Brendan Gallagher, chief connected health officer at Publicis Health, expanded on the point, explaining that the partners see “a huge opportunity to collaborate on breakthrough patient services that drive behavior.” If Publicis and League are right, those changes to behavior could improve health outcomes.
The partners see the integration of disconnected services into a single platform as a way to improve human health, pointing to evidence that people who have the knowledge, skills and confidence to be actively engaged in their healthcare have better outcomes to make their case. Studies have linked health literacy and the ability to self-manage health to improvements in measures such as quality of life.
Initially, the partners will focus on “life sciences commercial and clinical patient services” but plan to look at the consumer experience needs of hospital systems, health plans and retail health down the line.