Introducing a Mobile Health Care Platform in an Underserved Rural Population: Reducing Assimilations Gaps on Adoption and Use via Nudges

Rural communities are often overlooked when it comes to offering cutting edge consumerhealthcare technologies. Mobile applications usually exclude populations in rural demographicsdue to the infrastructure requirements and available technology in the region. The populationstudied is a low income rural health plan in southwest Georgia. They are uniquely considered asthey have the highest healthcare costs in the U.S. and are compared to healthcare costs amonghigher income populations like Vail, Colorado. Innovations, such as mobile healthcareapplications, have the capacity to offset some of these costs, but even if adoption occurs, thisdoes not guarantee use will naturally follow. This study explores the creation and developmentof a mobile healthcare application (i.e., the platform) and measurement of the assimilation gap inthe use of the adopted platform. The platform was designed to simplify the access to useopportunities between consumers and providers of care with the long-term goal of reducinghealthcare costs. The use opportunities measured in this platform are telemedicine visits andelectronic appointment setting.This research presents a process for influencing assimilation gaps in healthcare platforms.Measurement techniques for successful healthcare platform programs are constrained due to datalimitations. Building on existing assimilation gap research and designing artifacts that includenudging techniques, this study identifies concepts that display assimilation gap narrowingmethods that improve healthcare platform design. Using elaborated action design research(EADR), each artifact design cycle follows a process map to improve adoption and use. Theresearch discovers how adoptable a healthcare platform (CareValet) is within a rural population, which strategies most promote adoption, and what strategies might best support useimprovement. In this study, platform adoption is compared as the relative value against each usemetric for key stakeholders including consumers (e.g., health plan members), clients (e.g.,employer or health plan), and platform developers. Research contributions include thedevelopment of assimilation gap narrowing methods and return on investment (ROI) valuegraphing tools associated with platform use.