Cigna Rolls Out Virtual World Program Pilot for Healthcare
Molly Merrill
BLOOMFIELD, CT - Cigna is rolling out a pilot project of its virtual health care community, a computer simulated world that aims at positively changing healthcare behaviors.
The program, based on the Second Life platform, is situated on the Second Life island. Second Life is a 3D virtual world where users, represented by their avatars, can socialize, connect and create using voice and text chat.
The pilot will offer virtual seminars, interactive displays and educational games that encourage preventative care, improvements in healthcare behavior, as well as help to sustain these changes.
The pilot, which will be conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom, is designed to encourage healthcare dialogue among users, healthcare providers and peers says Peter Mills, chief medical officer, Cigna Vielife Division. Mills emphasized that the program is "not replacing anything, but that people might find it a more preferable medium to engage in conversations about healthcare."
Claus Nehmzow, general manager at Method, the brand experience agency that designed the virtual world community, said the idea is to combine consumer entertainment with the serious business of educating people about healthcare and delivering it at a lower cost.
Although Cigna may claim to be the first major healthcare provider to offer this, it is not the first to explore healthcare's place in the virtual world. This year at the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society conference in Orlando, Fla., IBM debuted its 3D virtual healthcare island in Second Life, which provided visitors with an interactive demonstration of IBM"s Health Information Exchange architecture.
"We believe that the use of our new virtual world provides an important, next-generation Internet-based resource to show how standards; business planning; the use of a secured, extensible and expandable architecture; HIE interoperability; and data use for healthcare analytics, quality, wellness and disease management are all helping to transform our industry," said Dan Pelino, general manager, IBM Global Healthcare & Life Sciences Industry, at the conference.
Mills said the pilot will "explore ways to engage people in conversations about health much earlier than has traditionally been the case."
Although, Cigna hopes that the program may one day offer individual virtual health consultations, Mills says that this is what the pilot will help to explore.
"We want to see if this engages peoples' interest and whether they take the information and make behavior changes."
Mills says it is still unclear whether Cigna will use this as a product that health plans offer to employers or as an element of the package that health plans deliver, or as an offering provided to Cigna members for free. Mills says he hopes that the pilot will explore this further and what models they have to work with.
The pilot will run until the end of the year with plans of going live in the "not too distant future."
