WALTHAM, MA – The days of delivering company news through mandatory meetings are on the wane, endangered by a more mobile and time-constrained workforce with access to a wide range of communication tools. This leaves insurers and health plans with the need to find new ways of getting information out to their employees and customers.
Enter Brainshark, a Waltham, Mass.-based developer of a software-as-a-service online platform for the creation, management and tracking of multimedia presentations. The company is pushing its applications as a means for insurers to educate brokers and their clients on their own terms and schedule, and recently unveiled a mobile application for use with Blackberry, Palm, Apple and Android devices.
“It makes the whole open enrollment process far more cost-effective,” said Tom Raleigh, vice president of Brainshark's healthcare and insurance business unit.
The company previewed its mobile application at the recent America’s Health Insurance Plans Institute 2010 in Las Vegas, presenting a communications platform to health plans and insurers desperate to find ways to reduce administrative costs in today’s economy. Raleigh and Greg Flynn, the company’s senior vice president of products and services, said the Brainshark booth on the exhibit hall floor was busy – and that many insurers are still relying on the “status quo” of conference calls and paper booklets to do business.
“There’s quite an education process involved,” said Raleigh, pointing out that healthcare reform efforts are putting even more pressure on payers and providers to pare administrative costs.
Flynn and Raleigh point out that Brainshark’s presentations, which combine voice narration, PowerPoint slides and video, can be streamed live, then stored for viewing at a later date. Data collection tools allow the presenter to chart where, when, how and how often the presentation is viewed, as well as how far each viewer gets into the presentation – allowing them to chart the presentation’s effectiveness and audit for compliance.
According to Flynn, one insurer uses Brainshark to train its agents on the complex process of selling Medicare products. Others use the platform as a tool for communication with health plan members and physicians, particularly in pushing wellness initiatives or chronic care guidelines.
“We’ve only just begun to market to hospitals,” said Raleigh.
