Are Too Many Point Solutions Becoming a Point of Failure?
Employers are finding that separate benefits for different chronic conditions are inefficient and ineffective.
It’s commonly cited that 50% of businesses manage anywhere from four to nine digital health benefit solutions at a time. This kind of vendor complexity makes things difficult for HR departments, and it’s frustrating for employees who struggle with more than one chronic condition. Point-solution fatigue was a hot topic in 2022, with employers speaking at conferences nationwide about a desire for solution interoperability and eliminating data silos. Since chronic conditions tend to travel in packs, the phenomenon known as point-solution fatigue impacts most people who really need efficient and effective digital health benefits.
Can’t Maintain the High
According to Healthcare IT News, initial enthusiasm for digital health—especially during the pandemic—created an “explosion in VC funding for digital health startups delivering point solutions.”
By the end of 2021, with funding at an all-time high, the digital health marketplace was fragmented. Employers began taking a hard look at their existing digital health benefit investments, through the lens “that there’s often more payback in optimizing workflows and driving adoption rates for existing digital health programs than in launching new ones; that there are more gains from consolidating platforms than in buying new ones; [and that] there’s more benefit to slowing down on multimillion-dollar technology projects…”
Overwhelmed HR departments, frustrated users, and newly cautious investors are all causing a radical shift in the digital health industry away from point solutions. Consolidation, creative partnerships, and other realignments will be critical for employers looking for digital health benefits that maximize engagement and deliver the best clinical outcomes and cost savings possible.
Research Favors Integrated Solutions
New research, conducted by Dario and published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) and presented at the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) 82nd Scientific Sessions, provides solid evidence that a single, integrated digital health platform helps people manage multiple chronic conditions more effectively than separate point solutions.
This is good news for people with common cardiometabolic conditions—such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity—which are often accompanied by musculoskeletal disorders and mental health concerns.
It’s also good news for the more than 40% of HR executives who, in a 2021 SHRM survey, said they have too many projects and too few staff, despite the need for modernized benefits packages that emphasize personal relevance, flexibility, and convenience.
Dario’s state-of-the-art, integrated digital health benefits system is already light years ahead of typical digital health point solutions. You can expect more changes from us in the new year to remove digital health benefit friction for employers and employees alike.
Since we started out as a direct-to-consumer solution in 2011, our mission has been to help people with chronic conditions “make the right things to do the easy things to do.” And now, as one of the leading providers of digital health benefit solutions to employers and health plans, we’re applying that same idea to the people who administer those benefits.