Help People Make Smart Health Care Decisions with NurseLine

When I attended the Healthiest Employers event, I picked up an idea from a presentation that Irene Myers-Thompson from UHC did on using health plan resources to build a wellness program. She suggested having people enter the NurseLine number in their cell phones to be entered into a raffle.

The NurseLine is a great first point of contact for people with a health concern. A team of experienced registered nurses is available to answer health questions 24 hours a day, seven days a week at no cost to the caller. They're available at 2:00 am when a child has a high fever. They can help a caller decide when a family member might need stitches or an x-ray. When someone is traveling and gets sick, they can help the person decide when and where to seek care. Our challenge is to make sure people think to call and have the number available when they need it. 

We held our flu shot clinic today, so I figured we had a captive audience while people waited in line. We chatted with folks and had them save the number in their phones. People earned a second entry if they downloaded the Health4Me app on their smart phones. We announced the contest on our intranet and gave staff until 5:00 to stop by and show us that they had entered the number and/or downloaded the app. 

Very few people already had the number saved in their phones. (A handful of folks actually had the NurseLine number from the insurance coverage we had with Guardian back in 2010.) We distributed 136 flu shots and received 73 entries for our drawing. Our winner was Tracy Schooling. Tracy won a $25 iTunes gift card. 

UHC Nurseline