Wellvolution, a digital health platform by Blue Shield of California, will now be more inclusive and accessible for Spanish speakers.
Through a new web page, eligible members can determine their health goals, complete a health questionnaire and receive personalized program recommendations in Spanish. The insurer also announced that Wellvolution will now include Dario, in both English and Spanish, to help members track and reduce hypertension.
Hispanic communities in California are more likely to have difficulty finding a primary care doctor or specialist than other groups, likely due to language barriers, according to data from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research as compiled by The California Health Care Almanac.
“We want lifestyle medicine to be accessible to more people, and the addition of Spanish onboarding and hypertension offerings opens up Wellvolution to more people in need of these services,” said Angie Kalousek-Ebrahimi, senior director of lifestyle medicine at Blue Shield of California, in a statement. “Wellvolution was created to offer personalized solutions to address individual needs, and it is only fitting to continue expanding the program to close care gaps and meet the needs of our diverse membership.”
Dario stores patients’ blood pressure results from a monitor and delivers evidence-based recommendations to lower blood pressure levels. Nearly three-quarters of patients reduced their blood pressure levels after three months of using Dario, and 38% saw a reduction by one stage, according to a press release.
“Over 30% of Californians have hypertension,” said Omar Manejwala, M.D., chief medical officer of DarioHealth, in a statement. “By offering Dario for hypertension through Wellvolution at no additional cost, more Californians have the chance to improve their cardiovascular health, which directly correlates to instances of heart disease and stroke, both leading causes of death in California.”
Wellvolution was created in collaboration with Solera Health to aid members by providing app-based programs and personalized coaching in disease prevention, chronic condition reversal, mental health support and tobacco cessation. Each specialty will now include at least one Spanish language program. It now serves more than 148,000 Blue Shield of California members.
Blue Shield of California recently partnered with Salesforce to reduce processing time for benefits administration from 24 hours to five minutes.