Summary: Both science and human nature played a part in the success of Healthways' telephonic care support for diabetes patients, explains John Harris, senior vice president of the Health Support Division of Healthways. Even though the program is from Healthways' care management side, he believes that the same results would apply to a coaching effort, since any time a human intervenes with another human, the chances of success go up considerably. According to John, an individual's learning style and risk levels are also factors in determining whether a Web-based or telephonic coaching system would be most effective. John also explains how advances in predictive modeling allow healthcare organizations to find candidates earlier and provide more compelling evidence of the need for a coaching intervention. Harris and Sean Slovenski, president and CEO, Hummingbird Coaching Services, described how to effectively capture and integrate multiple data sources to identify potential clients for health coaching and how to effectively use that information to achieve health coaching success during a June 13, 2007 audio conference, Building a Health Management IT Platform for Health Coaching.
