Times have changed. The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled us to change the way we do our everyday activities. Industries across the world have been impacted significantly and are now pivoting to adapt to any such crises in the future.
However, the healthcare industry and everyone associated to it has been at the forefront of this fight against the Coronavirus. Taking into consideration the effects of the pandemic, skepticism about how the common public will be able to acquire their basic rights to quality healthcare is on the rise.
Undoubtedly, according to experts, the most promising solution to this pressing issue is telehealth. The usage of telehealth services was prevalent even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Only now, its acceptance and adoption is set to surge, considering the aforesaid changes that the common public and healthcare providers will have to adhere to.
Foreseeing this emergence of better and impactful telehealth services and solutions, we at Insights Care bring to you this edition titled Canada’s 10 Most Prominent Telehealth Solution Providers. In this endeavor, we crossed paths with a company that most certainly exhibits the potential to be one of the top telehealth solution providers. That company, featuring on our cover, is Wello.
Wello is a virtual healthcare service, providing Canadian employees access to holistic medical care, 24/7. Staffed with the most caring nurse practitioners and medical coordinators, Wello members receive immediate assistance via phone, video chat and/or instant messaging. Wello makes healthcare easier and keeps communities healthy by offering a wide range of primary care needs, mental health support, medical advice and navigation through employee benefits plans.
The company was launched in 2017 by INLIV, a 40-year medical facility specialized in the delivery of primary healthcare, preventative health services, ongoing care programs and medical condition management. Wello’s comprehensive expertise in virtual healthcare is fuelled by a very deep understanding and culture of healthcare delivery to employees, as well as untarnished records for medical compliance and privacy that runs decades.
With the combination of medical care and technology, Wello’s services are currently supporting the health journeys of over 400+ Canadian businesses and hundreds of thousands of employees across Canada.
Exhibiting Healthcare Excellence
When Wello was developed, the philosophy wasn’t to build a virtual walk-in clinic model, but instead to ensure that patients would receive a unified and persistent continuity of care, which are crucial elements to bring better healthcare outcomes and successful delivery. Wello’s ability to develop continuity of care happens through the employment of all clinicians to ensure that screening, training and medical protocols are focused on follow up for all sorts of medical conditions, focused chronic conditions management, specialist referrals, and diagnostics.
Wello virtual healthcare is not only able to focus on episodic care, but also to focus on the treatment of chronic conditions and behavioral health strategies. As a key component of its service offering, Wello supports employees’ mental health with diagnosis and navigation within their employee assistance program.
By working on disability and mental health issues, Wello is preventing people from entering long and short term disability, and supporting employers on their employees’ disability support. To support a seamless continuity of care experience, Wello integrates with other organizations’ benefits to help employees navigate through their benefits programs, and thus enhance their healthcare journey.
Surpassing Challenges
Being an innovator in a new medical delivery system and introducing a new employee benefit in Canada comes with many challenges. Wello has deep experience of employers’ health care needs and how to deliver services to employees that deliver valuable health care experiences. This understanding of corporate wellness has been essential to Wello’s early success.
Secondly, due to Wello’s experience, the company understands how to deliver medical services with expertise in safe, private and compliant care. Over the years, Wello has become a trusted advisor through the quality of services, and its scalable intuitive platform that is easy to implement within employee benefit programs. These elements are essential in the delivery and acceptance of virtual healthcare in Canadian workplaces.
Wello operates as a culture driven organization. Each Wello staff member understands the challenges that employers face today in helping employees access care, positioning virtual care as a solver of both cost and benefit navigation issues, while being able to customize to the need of employers. Wello’s corporate values of care, passion, team and growth, flows through to the positive and caring service provided by clinicians to employees, which translates into strong customer relationship and retention.
Exemplary Leadership
Wello’s source of inspiration comes from its founder, Vince Danielsen and his passion for ensuring that all Canadians have better and more holistic access to medical care. As a cancer survivor at the age of 15, Vince has a firsthand understanding of how good care can make a difference for someone.
During his journey as a patient battling cancer, Vince was supported by doctors and nurses and this has fueled his career path to work in healthcare and look at ways how he can improve healthcare access in Canada.His experience has given him a deep sense of empathy for what people go through when facing health challenges and it is with this lens that he created the Wello experience in virtual healthcare that delivers a caring experience with excellent health outcomes.
As a Calgary Stampeders receiver, winning Grey Cup Championships in 1998 and 2001, football showed him the value of growing strong teams, and this translate into building a culture as a company that is collaborative, open and trusting.
Vince threw the same focus and determination into becoming the leader of Wello, with a great understanding of healthcare models that are delivered to business and consumer markets. According to Vince, healthcare systems run better when the service is not siloed, fragmented and where there is a team approach. This approach has made Wello successful in delivering virtual healthcare services with the same philosophy of working together.
Today, Vince is proud to be running companies that are changing the way Canadians think and feel about healthcare – all so that they can live healthier, richer lives.
When asked about his opinion on the current scenario of the telehealth solutions sphere, Vince expressed, “when telehealth initially came out, there was an early adopters segment focused on virtual walk-in clinics. This was very many point of care, episodic solutions with a start and stop for cold flu, skin rash, prescription refills. With the world in a state of change, the telemedicine segment has shifted from becoming a new, innovative health benefit and opportunity to access healthcare differently, to a necessity to support physical distancing and ease the pressure off the faceto- face medical system.”
“Since day 1, Wello has have been providing patients with access to chronic condition management and behavioral health management with a virtual healthcare service that delivers high-value service into the occupational health segment.”
“Virtual health and mental health has been quickly adopted by major providers in the industry. In the future, there will be segments that will focus more on specific chronic conditions, such as, diabetes and heart disease which are conditions that a high percentage of employees’ experience and drive a high cost to employers. Another segment that will emerge will be focused on the use of virtual healthcare to manage and support employers in managing short and long term disability.”
“On an employer perspective, the current benefit-plan offerings are fragmented, with little integration between providers. The integration of multiple benefits providers on a virtual platform will provide a more single solution, including services such as mental health, medical second opinion, and employee assistance programs, supporting the opportunity to deliver better health outcomes for employees and reduce costs for employers.”
“As the virtual healthcare industry continues to evolve, I also see continued integration with retail and pharmacy businesses that want to enhance their service offerings.”
Why Wello?
From an employee healthcare delivery point of view, Wello has been successfully shown to overcome barriers to health services caused by the distance between patient and provider, division of care due to gaps in time between appointments, and lack of available providers in certain areas of Canada.
As support of, traditional care delivery, Wello drastically increased the efficiency of care delivery by connecting patients to clinicians in less than 20 minutes, allowing multiple conditions handling in the same appointment, or providing guidance within the healthcare system.
Patients enjoy the holistic approach to care provided by the Wello clinicians, who manage to develop strong patient-medical provider relationships that enhance the customer experience. The convenience of our app makes it easier and quicker for patients to stay healthy and engaged in their health care.
From an employer standpoint, we are bringing healthcare and keeping employees well by working closely with HR leaders and employee benefits managers to support their employees’ health. Ultimately, the Wello service successfully bridges the gap between accessible, personalized care and better health outcomes. The direct consequences on the employees’ engagement cannot go unnoticed: reduced absenteeism reduced STD and LTD claims, increased positive and healthy work environment, and impacted work-life balance.
Strength Lies Within
Wello always keeps in mind that healthcare is delivered by people. “What we have always known through our history, is that when medical providers are healthy and engaged, they will always deliver better healthcare experience. At Wello, we focus a lot on our company culture: Care, Passion, Team and Growth. We believe that the care we deliver to each other as a collaborative team improve drastically the patient’s experience. Wello’s leadership is very much connected to the mission of our staff: help employees live amazing lives and all our motivation comes out of this statement,” says Vince.
Being a virtual healthcare company much of Wello’s staff work remotely. This brings many challenges to ensure a full team environment. Every leader in the company is committed to keeping communication lines open, and continuing to provide opportunities to connect and engage with other employees.
Wello always supports its own staff on their personal and professional growth by understanding how progress makes people more motivated. The company is also committed in staying on the cutting edge of innovation, as innovation is the future delivery and its staff brings a mindset of how can they deliver new models of care that impact clients lives and the future of health care in Canada.
“Wello is very proud of how our post appointment and client surveys show very positive experience feedback. Our Net Promoter Score (NPS) is an industry-leading 80, and maintains over 4.8/5 satisfaction rating from the high praise from our clients and likelihood to recommend us,” asserts Vince.
Beholding A Successful Future
With continuous technology and service development, Wello envisions continuing to be on ways to provide easier access to healthcare for Canadians, while helping businesses support happy, healthy and productive employees. Through a team of passionate and caring clinicians, Wello virtual healthcare has successfully improved patient access to medical care while reducing healthcare costs for employers. “When Canadians think of amazing virtual health care experience and medical outcomes we want them to think of Wello,” Vince expresses. On the employer perspective, Wello wants them to believe in a company that will be more than a benefit supplier, but a true trusted advisor and collaborator to reshape the health care delivery to their employees.
Wello will continue to expand its medical and allied health practitioners workforce from coast to coast as it develops a true team-based healthcare experience for employers. The company will continue to invest and be at the cutting edge of technology innovation with one sole focus of providing the most ease of accessing medical care and driving behavioral health changes for those in need.
Over the coming years, one of Wello’s ambition is to leverage its influence in Canada to grow in a more global North American market. “We believe that the growing need for virtual healthcare as a root component of employee benefit programs goes far beyond our Canadian borders,” concludes Vince.
To learn more about Wello and its range of services, click here : https://www.wello.ca/
