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BOSTON — Aetna, a CVS Health business, has launched Attain, a unique health experience designed by Aetna in collaboration with Apple. Through the use of an Apple Watch, the Attain app will provide Aetna members personalized goals, track their daily activity levels, recommend healthy actions, and ultimately reward them for taking these actions to improve their well-being. Reward opportunities include the ability for eligible users to earn their Apple Watch through their participation in the program.
This launch builds on the 2016 collaboration between Aetna and Apple in which 90% of participants reported a health benefit from their use of Apple Watch. Aetna has deep clinical experience, engaging its members across their health care needs from wellness to chronic disease. Apple consistently delivers highly personalized products in a simple yet elegant fashion that prioritizes privacy and data security and helps people live their best lives. The Attain app is the first of its kind designed specifically to offer users a personalized experience that combines their health history with the power of the Apple Watch to help them achieve better health and well-being.
The Attain app is expected to be available in the Apple App Store in Spring 2019. More information can be found at www.AttainbyAetna.com
Attain consists of four main pillars:
• Achieve Activity Goals: Health ambitions are not one size fits all, and neither are Attain’s customized activity goals. Attain provides participants with personalized daily and weekly activity goals, based on their age, sex and weight. Attain’s definition of activity is not restricted to steps taken, and includes other activities measured by the Apple Watch, such as swimming and yoga.
• Sustain Everyday Health: Attain offers weekly challenges, where participants earn points for taking actions that improve their overall health and well-being. Challenges may include getting more sleep, increasing mindfulness and improving nutrition.
• Receive Personalized Health Notifications for Key Health Moments: Attain recommends personalized healthy actions based on an Aetna member’s health history as well as their Apple Watch sensor data. Created in collaboration with a team of doctors, the recommendations are based on clinical guidelines. At launch, healthy action notifications will include reminders to meet activity goals, get vaccinations such as the flu shot, notifications to refill medication prescriptions when they’re scheduled to run out, suggestions to visit a primary care physician if they have not had a recent office visit, and the availability of a lower-cost option for scheduled lab tests and imaging such as MRI scans.
• Earn Rewards: As they complete their activity goals and recommended healthy actions, participants earn reward points, which can be redeemed to defray the cost of the Apple Watch or for gift cards to popular national retailers.
Attain will bring all of this into a unified health experience, providing it to Aetna members in a single app on a device they may already own and use regularly. Participation requires that Aetna members have an iPhone 5S or later and an Apple Watch Series 1 or later.
“From fitness enthusiasts, to casual gym-goers, to parents who get all their exercise by keeping up with their kids – we designed Attain for everyone,” said Alan Lotvin, executive vice president of transformation for CVS Health. “We understand that you don’t need to be a personal trainer or work out several hours a day to be healthier. We’re designing Attain to be personalized and clinically relevant to where each individual is in their health journey. This is an ambitious challenge, and we will adapt and improve over time to create the best experience for our members.”
After users have joined Attain, they will have the additional option to share their Attain program data and health history with Apple, enabling Apple and Aetna to collaborate, and over time, continue to improve the Attain experience. Through analytics and machine learning, the collaboration will lead to new features for Attain, offering more personalized recommendations designed to give greater context and decrease barriers to health care.
“We believe that people should be able to play a more active role in managing their well-being. Every day, we receive emails and letters from people all over the world who have found great benefit by incorporating Apple Watch into their lives and daily routines,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer. “As we learn over time, the goal is to make more customized recommendations that will help members accomplish their goals and live healthier lives.”
User privacy and data security are at the heart of Attain. A completely voluntary program, members determine what information they want to share and can discontinue using Attain at any time. All Attain health data is encrypted on the device, in transit, and on Aetna and Apple’s servers, where it will be stored in a highly secure environment using industry-leading practices fully in compliance with HIPAA. Information from this program will not be used for underwriting, premium or coverage decisions.
The Attain rewards platform builds off a program developed by Vitality Group, a model that has demonstrated that incentives linked to the Apple Watch are associated with increased, sustained activity. A recent study from RAND corporation found an average 34 percent increase in activity levels for participants using the rewards platform incorporated in Attain with Apple Watch, compared to those without these incentives – leading to an additional 4.8 days of activity per month.
The company said interested Aetna members are encouraged to sign up at www.AttainbyAetna.com to be notified when the App becomes available for download.
