Unlocking value with smarter health care point solutions

With hundreds of new digital health solutions added daily, how do employers choose the right one for their health care challenges?

What are point solutions in health care?

Point solutions, ranging from mental health apps to adherence tools and remote monitoring devices, are designed to address specific, targeted problems. When integrated properly, they can provide significant benefits.

Compared to a comprehensive all-in-one platform, these point solutions can provide:

• Faster implementation
• Lower costs
• Greater specialization

But how do employers ensure they’re delivering the right value and insights across the entire benefits ecosystem? 

Navigating the digital health landscape can be confusing, costly, and time-consuming. 

This stat is alarming; Employers are investing more than ever in health care and these new solutions need to show their effectiveness. 

Proven point solutions and benefits performance management

Point solutions allow organizations to address specific challenges without disrupting entire systems. However, without a strategic framework for vendor selection, performance tracking, and proper adoption, benefits programs can become fragmented and underutilized. 

The right solutions should provide measurable, lasting impacts. But how can organizations evaluate which ones will truly deliver?

Best practices for picking health care point solutions

Employers face a tough challenge in cutting through market noise to identify vendor solutions that integrate seamlessly with existing systems and deliver meaningful results.

Smart organizations consider these factors when adopting solutions:

• Alignment with goals: Clearly define the challenge before selecting a solution that directly addresses it.
• Clinical validation: Ensure the solution is backed by credible, evidence-based outcomes, particularly peer-reviewed cohort studies.
• Integration and long-term scalability: Assess how seamlessly the solution integrates with existing systems and its future adaptability.
• Engagement: Go beyond enrollment numbers to measure sustained utilization and ongoing engagement.
• Performance: Define clear KPIs (e.g., cost savings, health outcomes) to evaluate the solution’s effectiveness.
• Data protection: Ensure solutions have validated security and privacy compliance.

To ensure point solutions deliver on their promises, continuous measurement and evaluation are critical. Unfortunately, many organizations lack the capacity and/or expertise to conduct deep research, data analysis, and consistent monitoring to adopt and evaluate their point solutions.

Without visibility into engagement, actions, and outcomes, point solutions operate in silos, and it becomes impossible to identify gaps in care.

Fighting point solution fatigue among benefits management teams

While the digital health space offers many powerful point solutions, employers often suffer from point solution fatigue. Managing numerous vendors and optimizing how these solutions work together is an overwhelming challenge.

Even for benefits experts, finding the right solutions is difficult. On average, employers spend 24 hours a week managing vendors and benefits, with nearly all agreeing that a navigation service would be invaluable.¹

Many health care benefits strategies fall short, struggling to balance effective vendor management with achieving overall program goals.

Bringing it all together: The power of a navigation solution

A vendor-agnostic benefits navigation tool, like Evernorth’s CareNav+, can offer a trustworthy, transparent, and comprehensive approach that maximizes the collective impact of individual solutions.

Evernorth has set the industry standard for assessing digital health vendors. What began as an evaluation of a handful of market-leading solutions has expanded into our Digital Health Formulary—now with 30+ solutions —trusted by leading organizations focused on controlling costs and improving employee experiences.

Clinical rigor and data-driven analysis are key to ensuring that vendors provide measurable value. At Evernorth, we’ve ensured that our partners deliver trustworthy results, including:

• 52% pain reduction for patients with MSK conditions²
• 12.9 lbs. (on average) weight loss per participant²
• 65% tobacco quit rate² 

Benefits leaders need visibility into results and a way to communicate value to stakeholders. Employers need to ensure that their solutions deliver insights that inform where programs deliver results and where members need additional support.