Mobile. Connected. Personalized. Health at your fingertips.
Benefits-eligible Emory employees have a new tool to make getting and staying healthier a little easier: Healthy Emory Connect. This new platform is accessible via desktop and through a mobile app that is downloadable for free from the Apple App Store and Google Play for Android devices.
“Employees will enjoy how flexible and easy to use the app is,” says Michael Staufacker, director of health management. “Healthy Emory Connect brings together the key elements to good health into a one-stop-shop for healthy living.”
Healthy Emory Connect allows employees to complete their 2018 online health risk assessment; earn many of their 2018 Emory medical plan incentives; stay updated on upcoming fitness classes, programs and events; and invite up to 10 friends and family members to join them in health challenges.
Because everyone’s health priorities are different, users can personalize the experience to set individual health goals across a variety of focus areas, such as sleep, activity, nutrition, learning and emotional health. The personalized nature of the app also means that employees can bring their own device, such as a Garmin or Apple Watch, to cross-system challenges like the Move More Challenge.
Expanding the reach of Wellness Champions
Another great feature of Healthy Emory Connect is the wealth of resources available specifically for Emory’s Wellness Champion network. Wellness champions are able to design and deliver step challenges for their local teams, departments and sites. They also can alert employees in their specific areas of lunch-and-learns, walking groups, cooking demos and other health and well-being activities with the shared event calendar.
After seeing a recent Healthy Emory Connect demo, Amanda Yu-Nguyen, wellness champion at Oxford, is excited to have this resource to better organize and promote health and well-being programs for employees there.
Michelle Brown, wellness champion at Emory University Hospital (EUH), sees the possibilities in reaching employees who typically may not be able to participate in a lot of the wellness activities. “I am looking forward to being able to connect with more EUH staff who work overnight and on weekends,” she says. “It can be difficult to stay in communication with these employees because I don’t come in contact with them on a regular basis.”
Healthy Emory Connect is powered by Virgin Pulse, part of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. This organization was chosen because of their demonstrated expertise, best practices in user design and commitment to using evidence-based methods in developing the platform and program design.
“As a leading research center and academic health system, it was important to us that this platform provide a meaningful experience to our savvy set of users and be drawn from the best available research in technological design and health promotion principles,” says Staufacker. “We are very excited about what Healthy Emory Connect will mean for our community.”
Learn more about Healthy Emory Connect.