Dynamic personalization takes into account how individuals change over time. After all, the same employee may have different preferences from day to day, week to week, month to month, or year to year. Creating an intra-personal experience that drives engagement and behavior change over time requires a solution that dynamically adapts six dimensions—time, tone, content, channel, frequency and intervention. To determine whether a solution offers dynamic personalization of user journeys or just static personalization of nudges, ask additional questions such as:

How does the technology adapt to intra-personal differences –i.e., differences over time?
Can you show me how a user's journey—not just communications– will change as they change preferences over time?
Along how many domains does the solution personalize?

4. What proven clinical outcomes has this solution delivered? The previous questions seek to uncover how a solution works. Ultimately, though, employers need proof the solution will help improve the health of their employees. The best way to ensure a solution delivers is to ask whether its outcomes have been tested and validated through research studies. Be sure to go deeper than just surface details by asking:

Are the outcomes studies published in peer-reviewed journals? (Peer-reviewed research is more trustworthy because experts in the field scrutinize it before it's published.)
Does the research involve long-term studies or short-term studies? (The longer a solution can prove results, the better.)
How many users were involved in the research? Smaller studies are less useful—where possible, look for studies with tens of thousands of users.
Are they replicated studies or single studies? (While a single study is valuable, replication helps prove the validity of the original study.)
How significant are the clinical advances indicated by the research? In other words, how much better off are people who use the solution vs. those who use other solutions or those who do nothing?

Look especially for improvements in the clinical metrics tied most to the overall health and costs of each specific employee population. For instance, if there is a high incidence of diabetes in an employee population, see how the digital health technology impacts factors such as hemoglobin A1c levels. In musculoskeletal conditions, look for improvements in pain scores. For behavioral health conditions, look for reductions in validated symptom severity instruments. Finally, insist on using a solution yourself before committing your employees to use it.

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