Blue Shield of California's Award-Winning Wellvolution Now More Accessible for Spanish Speakers, Adds New Hypertension Offering

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• USA - español

Nonprofit health plan expands services to better meet the healthcare needs of Californians by making it easier to enroll in lifestyle medicine programs at no additional cost

OAKLAND, Calif., Nov. 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Blue Shield of California is making its award-winning digital health platform Wellvolution more accessible for Spanish-speakers and expanding its program with the addition of Dario, an at-home solution for high blood pressure, or hypertension, that combines personalized health coaching and tech-enabled monitoring.

Built in collaboration with Solera, over 148,000 Blue Shield of California members are currently enrolled in Wellvolution programs for lifestyle medicine and mental health support. Now, the nonprofit health plan has launched a new Wellvolution webpage where eligible members can sign up, select their health goal, complete a health questionnaire, and receive personalized program recommendations — all in Spanish.

Over 26% of Californians speak Spanish at home, and research shows that Hispanic communities in California are more likely to have trouble finding a doctor and accessing behavioral health services than other groups because of language barriers and lack of access to preventive care. Today's announcement helps to close the care gap and expand access to lifestyle medicine in these underserved communities.

"We want lifestyle medicine to be accessible to more people, and the addition of Spanish onboarding and hypertension offerings opens up Wellvolution to more people in need of these services," said Angie Kalousek-Ebrahimi, senior director of Lifestyle Medicine at Blue Shield of California. "Wellvolution was created to offer personalized solutions to address individual needs, and it is only fitting to continue expanding the program to close care gaps and meet the needs of our diverse membership."

Wellvolution offers at least one Spanish language program for each health need covered under the platform: diabetes, weight management, mental health, tobacco cessation, and hypertension.

Tackling Hypertension

Available in both English and Spanish, Dario is the newest addition to Wellvolution combining intelligent technologies with personal coaching support to help members track and reduce hypertension, while improving health behaviors. The comprehensive app captures and stores patients' blood pressure results directly from their Bluetooth-enabled blood pressure monitor, so that a personal health coach can provide tailored and evidence-based recommendations to lower a patient's blood pressure based on the results. Within the first three months of using Dario, 71% of participants reduced blood pressure levels, and 38% of participants saw a reduction in blood pressure levels by one stage – offering an at-home solution for members with stage 2 and stage 3 hypertension.

"Over 30% of Californians have hypertension," said Omar Manejwala, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, DarioHealth. "By offering Dario for Hypertension through Wellvolution at no additional cost, more Californians have the chance to improve their cardiovascular health, which directly correlates to instances of heart disease and stroke, both leading causes of death in California."

Spanish speaking members can go to Wellvolution.com/es to enroll in Wellvolution, members who have stage 2 and stage 3 hypertension can go to Wellvolution.com or Wellvolution.com/es and fill out the health questionnaire to get started with Dario for Hypertension.

About Blue Shield of California
Blue Shield of California strives to create a healthcare system worthy of its family and friends that is sustainably affordable. Blue Shield of California is a tax paying, nonprofit, independent member of the Blue Shield Association with more than 4.8 million members, over 7,500 employees and more than $24 billion in annual revenue. Founded in 1939 in San Francisco and now headquartered in Oakland, Blue Shield of California and its affiliates provide health, dental, vision, Medicaid and Medicare healthcare service plans in California. The company has contributed more than $97 million to Blue Shield of California Foundation in the last three years to have an impact on California communities.

For more news about Blue Shield of California, please visit news.blueshieldca.com.

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About Solera Health
Solera is changing lives by guiding people to better health solutions that work. The Solera HALO^™ value-based technology platform enables successful interventions that address the most prevalent and costly chronic conditions. Solera matches consumers to their best-fit solution within carefully curated networks of digital and community-based point solutions, and drives superior engagement and outcomes by managing performance. Solera's technology platform serves payers and employers by streamlining, integrating, and creating accountability in the point solution ecosystem. For more information, visit www.soleranetwork.com.

About DarioHealth Corp.
DarioHealth Corp. (Nasdaq: DRIO) is a leading digital health company revolutionizing how people with chronic conditions manage their health through a user-centric, multi-chronic condition digital therapeutics platform. Dario's platform and suite of solutions deliver personalized and dynamic interventions driven by data analytics and one-on-one coaching for diabetes, hypertension, weight management, musculoskeletal pain and behavioral health. Dario's user-centric platform offers people continuous and customized care for their health, disrupting the traditional episodic approach to healthcare. This approach empowers people to holistically adapt their lifestyles for sustainable behavior change, driving exceptional user satisfaction, retention and results and making the right thing to do the easy thing to do. Dario provides its highly user-rated solutions globally to health plans and other payers, self-insured employers, providers of care and consumers. To learn more about Dario and its digital health solutions, or for more information, visit http://dariohealth.com.

SOURCE Blue Shield of California