View the Printer Friendly Version >

Health Care Stories

Minnesota Community Measurement

CASE STUDY: The D5

CHALLENGE: Minnesota Community Measurement (MNCM) thrives on the mission to accelerate the improvement of health by publicly reporting health care information. MNCM needed help in order to continue achieving this mission and avoid the impracticalities associated with reinventing the entire MNCM report online.

WOWZA SOLUTION: Wowza recommended that MNCM focus on exploring the novel approaches to increasing consumer engagement with a single measure. Therefore, Phase One of Wowza's first project with MNCM was to build a small micro-Web site - www.theD5.org - that would report only one measure: Diabetes.

While the purpose of the Web site was to report clinic-level diabetes measures in a way that is simple to navigate and easy to understand, Wowza recognized that the real opportunity was in branding the measure. In giving the measure a name and a logo--the D5--it became easier for patients to understand the data and for providers and employers to communicate the treatment goals.

During the second phase of the D5, with funding from a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant, Wowza conducted focus groups with type-2 diabetes patients to inform the development of an integrated D5 marketing communications campaign. Based on the qualitative research, Wowza created a suite of communications tools, including rooming posters, appointment reminder post cards, a notebook to track exercise and food intake, and a physician prescription pad, to help spread awareness of the D5 treatment goals and foster dialogue between patients and providers.

In an effort to make it easy for educators, health care providers and employers to access, customize and use the D5 communications materials to inform patients about optimal diabetes care, Wowza also designed and developed an interactive catalog Web site.

In addition to creating external communications tools, Wowza expanded the D5 Web site by adding engaging consumer-centered content. On the new D5 site, consumers can become engaged in several ways: they can search the clinic-level data, watch videos, find recipes, or play with the simple and fun flash tools.