Continuously Improving the Healthcare Experience: Celebrating Five Years of the Sydney Health App
Elevance Health introduced the Sydney Health app five years ago to make getting and paying for healthcare easier, simpler, and more personalized for members of our affiliated health plans.
“Sydney has helped move the industry toward empathetic, human-centered design that can understand people’s needs and address their unique experiences,” said Kim Rival, staff vice president for digital experience and product management. “Since we launched it in 2019, it’s consistently grown each year. On any given day in 2024, about half of members in our affiliated plans used Sydney in the previous 90 days.*"
Have a health question? Rather than rolling the dice with a search engine, members can ask Sydney and get a personalized response that’s pulled from Elevance Health’s vast healthcare data. Need to find a dermatologist? Sydney locates care providers who match to a member’s location, language spoken and more. Missing a member identification card? It’s easy to find on Sydney’s home screen. Better yet, members can find all of these features in Sydney, rather than having to visit multiple apps.
“Sydney brings the familiarity of the features we all use from online shopping and entertainment streaming into the healthcare experience,” Rival said. Sydney helps members find their ideal care provider, navigate common healthcare tasks, and get care in a way that’s convenient for them.
Making It Simpler to Find Care Providers, Get Care, and Manage Prescriptions
Five years ago, visiting a doctor via video was mostly reserved for long distance consultations and specialists. And while a global pandemic may have quickly pushed telehealth forward, Sydney is helping to make it routine. With 24/7 access to telehealth for many services, members can chat with a doctor without an appointment; get urgent care for things like allergies, cold, or flu; and receive prescriptions to deal with a cough or sinus infection (as permitted by state law).
One in five members has seen a care provider recommended by Sydney’s personalized match feature, which uses more than 500 data points to list care providers based on a member’s unique needs.
Managing prescriptions can be time-consuming; Sydney helps members easily order refills and track the status of their medicines quickly and securely.
Sydney’s Features Make Navigating Healthcare Easier
Sydney makes it easy for affiliated health plan members to see and understand their benefits as well as what’s covered, from the price of a surgery to whether a deductible has been met to whether a claim has been paid. They can even get a cost estimate for common surgical procedures, such as a knee replacement.
“These healthcare management tasks used to require a phone call from a private location—like a home or office,” Rival said. “But not everyone has the time or privacy needed to make these calls. Sydney saves time and offers privacy, so a member can see medical records, claims, even make a telehealth appointment, while they wait for their oil change or for their child’s baseball game to begin.”
Sydney Personalizes Healthcare
Like entertainment streaming services suggest a movie based on previous viewing habits, Sydney can use similar analytics to suggest next steps pertaining to healthcare. When a health plan member is due for routine care or a specific procedure, such as a colonoscopy, the app home screen includes relevant reminders.
Sydney’s personal care plans for chronic conditions like diabetes or asthma offer a customized health and wellness strategy tailored to a member’s unique needs and preferences. Live chat means members can type questions in the app and immediately receive answers.
“Sydney makes it possible for members to access care and engage with health professionals in ways they prefer – including digital, virtual, in-home, and traditional in-person care,” Rival said.
Sydney can also support members who have health-related social needs, such as not enough nutritious food, transportation barriers, or housing concerns. The My Health Check-in feature invites people to answer a series of questions to help identify social barriers to better health and then provides immediate recommendations tailored to the person’s needs. Members will also find tips on exercise, losing weight and quitting smoking, and goals can be synced with fitness trackers or other mobile devices.
“People want and expect their experience using healthcare to be simple,” Rival said. “Members have shared with us that they want more help from their health plan in understanding and using their benefits. We know there’s much more we can do with Sydney.”
Sydney has made a notable impact in just five years; we remain dedicated to driving further improvements guided by member feedback as data and technology advance.
*Elevance Health internal data
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