Personal Health Record Communication Strategy

This communication strategy template includes helpful information about how to communicate with employees when introducing the Personal Health Record. It includes everything you need to launch your employee Personal Health Record communications. As you review the content, you will discover that the documents are complementary, yet flexible, to support your specific communication needs.

This guide can help you:

  • Generate interest and support for the Personal Health Record in your organization.
  • Prepare for a successful program launch to your target population.
  • Promote enrollment in the Personal Health Record.
  • Motivate long-term adoption of the Personal Health Record.

Primary objectives of Personal Health Recordmessaging

  • Inform employees about a private, secure, online tool that enables them to easily view, access and manage their health information.
  • Enable employees to work more effectively with their doctors by arming them with detailed, relevant and up-to-date information.
  • Educate employees about the advantages of your company’s newest consumer tool.
  • Describe how relevant and actionable information (i.e. Alerts and Reminders) is delivered to employees so that, together with their doctors, they can make informed decisions concerning their health care.

Choose your rollout plan and materials

We have provided three sample rolloutplans to help you launch your communication campaign. Choose the one that best fits your company’s culture and available resources. In this kit, you’ll find the communication materials you’ll need to execute your campaign. Choose the materials that are most appropriate for your company.

Summary of promotional materials

The following materials are available to your company to promote the Personal Health Record. They include:

  • Overall Communication Strategy to guide you through planning and implementation
  • A pre-launch e-mail
  • A manager e-mail
  • A launch e-mail
  • Communication materials that feature the “Make History” campaign including:
  • Posters
  • Print postcards andreminder e-mails
  • Web button
  • Flyers
  • FAQs for employees
  • Text for articles
  • PowerPoint presentation with speaker’s notes
  • A self-running, pre-recorded“on-demand” webcast

Realities of Personal Health Recordadoption: Challenges you may face

The Personal Health Record is a valuable tool to help employees make more informed decisions and take a more active role in managing their health. As with anything new, there are several challenges your company may experiencewhen you introduce this tool to employees, including:

  • Lack of employee involvement in making personal health care decisions
  • General lack of understanding about health care basics
  • Lack of awareness of the availability of these types of tools (or their value)
  • General confusion about the wide range ofonline health tracking records currently available
  • Concerns about privacy
  • Potential misunderstanding around why their employer is sponsoring a Personal Health Record

While communicating with your supervisors and managers you may also find they are:

  • Not necessarily more informed about health care basics than their employees
  • Skeptical of new tools that may distract their employees during the work day

This communication strategy is designed to help you anticipate and address these potential challenges so you can successfully introduce thePersonal Health Record to your employees.
Audience and key messages

Your employees and your management team are two audiences to which you will want to communicate the Personal Health Record. The messages for both audiences are the same, though there are a few additional messages for your management team. Based on our findings during our pilot program, we recommend the following key messages.

Audiences / Key Messages
Employees and covered family members (dependents)
You may choose to break out certain employee populations that may require special consideration (e.g., shift workers, union workers[why union workers?], English-as-a-second-language, field sales, frequent travelers, employees at satellite sites).
You may also want to select and train subject-matter experts in these groups. / A Personal Health Record is a secure online tool that enables you to easily view, access and manage your health information.
The Personal Health Record makes it easy to safely store your health information online.
The Personal Health Record provides a Health Summary to print and share with your doctors so you can make informed decisions about your health together.
The Personal Health Record can send you alerts and reminders based on the information in your record that can help you stay as healthy as possible.
Important health information can be accessed in an emergency. The Personal Health Record can generate a printed emergency card that contains important phone numbers and vital information such as medications and allergies. [Are these 2 different thoughts – i.e., on-line access in an emergency and a printed card. If so, they kind of run together.]
The records are private and secure. Each covered family member has his or her own Personal Health Record. Access to your Personal Health Record requires a secure username and password. Employers cannot access the information within your record.
Protections have been built in to make sure your information is yours to control.
Supervisors and managers / Same messages as all employees, plus:
We will provide the materials you need to communicate with employees about the Personal Health Record.
Supervisors and managers may be asked to support and promote educational initiatives.
Health care education will be continuous and should be a component of most employee meetings.

Sample RolloutPlan for Print Campaign

This sample communication timeline serves as a guide to help you decide when to release certain communications. While we recommend thatcertain materials be distributed on launch day to maximize the impact of the campaign, this is simply a guideline. All materials are to be used at your discretion. Fill in the boxes with the dates you plan to release the materials.

Our findings show that frequent messaging works best to encourage adoption and continued use of the Personal Health Record.

Choose this timeline if your:

  • Employees have no access or very limited access to e-mail at work
  • Company does not regularly use an intranet siteto communicate with employees
  • Company has a budget to support printing and mailing costs

Launch Date: ______
Communication Timing for Print Campaign
Communication Component / First Quarter
Week of Launch / Second Quarter / Third Quarter / Fourth Quarter
Communication strategy template
Review prior to launch
Manager letter (Convert from Manager e-mail)
Distribute via interoffice mail or U.S. mail prior to the pre-launch letter
Pre-launch letter (Convert from Pre-launch e-mail)
Distribute via inter-office mail or U.S. mail about one week prior to launch day
Launch letter (Convert from Launch e-mail)
Distribute via inter-office mail or U.S. mail to arrive on launch day
Double-sided flyers
Choose from Personal Health Record only or
Personal Health Record + Simple Steps To A Healthier Life.
Distribute on launch day, include in a new-hire packet, or pair with the Launch letter.
FAQs
Include with launch letter or have on hand in case employees request additional information.
PowerPoint presentation with speaker’s notes
Use for education/training sessions or play on a TV monitor in break areas
Postcards
Distribute one postcard per quarter via U.S. mail or interoffice mail
Articles
Include one article per quarter in a company newsletter.
Posters
Display one poster per quarter.

Sample RolloutPlan for Print and Electronic Campaign

This sample communication timeline serves as a guide to help you decide when to release certain communications. While we recommend that certain materials be distributed on launch day to maximize the impact of the campaign, this is simply a guideline. All materials are to be used at your discretion. Fill in the boxes with the dates you plan to release the materials.

Our findings show that frequent messaging works best to encourage adoption and continued use of the Personal Health Record.

Choose this timeline if:

  • Employees have access to e-mail at work
  • Your companyregularly uses an intranet site to communicate with employees
  • Your company has a moderate budget to support printing and mailing costs

Launch Date: ______
Communication Timing for Print and Electronic Campaign
Communication Component / First Quarter
Week of Launch / Second Quarter / Third Quarter / Fourth Quarter
Communication strategy template
Review prior to launch.
Manager letter or e-mail
Distribute prior to pre-launch letter or e-mail.
Pre-launch letter or e-mail
Distribute one week prior to launch day.
Launch letter or e-mail
Distribute on launch day.
Double-sided flyers
Choose from Personal Health Record only or
Personal Health Record + Simple Steps To A Healthier Life.
Distribute on launch day, include in a new-hire packet, or pair with the Launch letter or e-mail.
FAQs
Post on the company intranet.
PowerPoint presentation with speaker’s notes
Use for education/training sessions or post on company intranet.
On-demand webcast
Post on company intranet.
Web button
Post on company intranet. Link to .
Postcards / Reminder e-mails (HTML or text-only)
Consider switching every other quarter between the print postcards and reminder e-mails.
Articles
Post one article per quarter on the company intranet or include in a newsletter.
Posters
Display one poster per quarter.

Sample RolloutPlan for Electronic Campaign

This sample communication timeline serves as a guide to help you decide when to release certain communications. While we recommend that certain materials be distributed on launch day to maximize the impact of the campaign, this is simply a guideline. All materials are to be used at your discretion. Fill in the boxes with the dates you plan to release the materials.

Our findings show that frequent messaging works best to encourage adoption and continued use of the Personal Health Record.

Choose this timeline if your company has:

  • Most employees who have access to e-mail at work
  • An intranet site that serves as a primary means of communicating with employees
  • A limited or no budget to support printing and mailing costs

Launch Date: ______
Communication Timing for Electronic Campaign
Communication Component / First Quarter
Week of Launch / Second Quarter / Third Quarter / Fourth Quarter
Communication strategy template
Review prior to launch.
Manager e-mail
Distribute prior to pre-launch e-mail.
Pre-launch e-mail
Distribute one week prior to launch day.
Launch e-mail
Distribute on launch day.
Double-sided flyers
Choose from Personal Health Record only or
Personal Health Record + Simple Steps To A Healthier Life.
Distribute on launch day, include in a new-hire packet, or pair with the Launch e-mail.
FAQs
Post on the company intranet.
PowerPoint presentation with speaker’s notes
Use for education/training sessions or post on company intranet.
On-demand webcast
Post on company intranet.
Web button
Post on company intranet. Link to
HTML or text-only reminder e-mails
Distribute one per quarter or more frequently if appropriate.
Articles
Post one article per quarter on the company intranet or include in a newsletter.
Posters
Display one poster per quarter.

Setting Goals and Achieving Success

Goal setting is important to any new program launch. Determine your company's participation goals prior to launching the program. You will be able to track metrics such as access to the tool, completion of the Walk Me Through tool, and number of health summary print outs through your quarterly aggregate management reports. Your goals may change from year to year as employees become more familiar with the product. Be realistic. Sometimes it takes several years for employees to become fully engaged.

There are several key factors that can help you achieve success including:

Management support: It's as important to engage your management team as it is your employees. When employees feel that the company supports their health efforts, they are more likely to be engaged.

Incentives:Aetna's research shows that the mostdesirable incentives are ones that impact the user's health care spending or savings, such as premium reductions, money deposited into flexible spending accounts, health reimbursement accounts, health savings accounts, etc. Other financial and health based incentives, such as health and wellness related gift cards, also work well.

Aetna has a reward tracking option that can help you administer incentives for certain activities.Contact your Aetna representative for more information.

Frequent communication: It's important to communicate on an ongoing basis to help keep the Personal Health Record top of mind. That could mean weekly, monthly or quarterly depending on the frequency that your employees will tolerate.

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