To meet the ever-evolving customer expectations, AXA, one of the world's leading insurers, has leveraged the power of Azure technology and the expertise of Microsoft and Healthanea to develop value-added services that integrate digital and physical healthcare journeys, while offering patients proactive support, from the detection of their first symptoms through to their medical treatment. The result is a platform, which connects hospitals, pharmaceuticals, heath tech solutions, insurers and more to provide patients with improved and frictionless access to healthcare.
Accompanying its customers throughout their health and well-being journey is a total paradigm shift and presents a challenge - even for the number one insurer Europe. "We want to be able to stand by our customers and make their daily lives as healthy as possible, turning from an insurance service provider to a trusted partner, which can orchestrate a seamless, end-to-end, connected and personalized healthcare journey," explains Cristiano Gianni, Head of Health Beyond Insurance at AXA Italy.
Italy. That's where, for the past three years, the digital health and wellbeing services platform has been deployed, for its very first nationwide test. As a unique and disruptive solution, the platform quickly found its audience in an industry often considered to be lagging digital transformation
For AXA, Italy was the perfect pilot for its new approach. The country's economic context is well-suited and faces challenges like those of many other European countries. “Demographic pressure is quite high, explains Cristiano Gianni. Today in Italy, there are five elderly people for every child.” This trend is set to increase: it is estimated that by 2050, the proportion of people over 65 will represent 35.9% of the total population. Today the Italian healthcare sector also faces major challenges. The private sector, on the other hand, is continues to enjoy double-digit growth.
Innovative digital healthcare support
To offer a remedy to for the friction and inefficiencies customers experience, Healthanea was created from a collaboration between AXA and Microsoft. One that was designed to combine their strengths and values with one objective: to enable a seamless and patient-centric healthcare experience.
These two partners have built the integrated PaaS infrastructure and APIs, based on Microsoft technologies - Azure Health Data FHIR Services, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Intelligent Assistant and Power BI. This combination makes it possible to collect, centralize and analyze multiple data sources, and provide customer with personalized recommendations on the next-best-action for their healthcare journey, with the support of doctors.
From their mobile application, AXA customers can now access at a click of a button medical services and devices, developed and certified by medical professionals, wherever and whenever they need them. For example, to describe their symptoms, customers can interact with the Symptoms Checker chatbot, developed in collaboration with healthcare partners. "The idea is to provide patients with reliable and accurate information, rather than consulting a regular search engine," says the director. The chatbot then suggests several personalized actions to move further in the health journey. If necessary, and always with the patient's agreement, the chatbot can forward this initial report to the patient’s attending physician. If certain criteria are met, a remote consultation can also be organized, directly from the platform.
Once completed, there's even more to come. Patients will be able to access a wide range of additional services: from online drug orders and home delivery from the nearest pharmacy, but also home help or babysitting services in the event of incapacity and even a custom selection of articles or webinars on the diagnosed condition.
Thanks to this solution, AXA gives access to doctors, who are certified professionals to provide medical services, everywhere and every time.
Health, privacy, and security: three key commitments of the project
This holistic approach to the healthcare journey is made possible by the digital infrastructure and technological expertise of Microsoft and its partner Healthanea through Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, namely Azure API for FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), which guarantees the protection of users' privacy. "In the early stages of the initiative, we consulted all possible technology partners. Microsoft was the most aligned with and complementary to our values", Cristiano Gianni recalls.
Both companies, experts in their respective fields, share "the conviction that we have a role to play in society and that we can have a positive impact", he adds. Over the years, Microsoft has demonstrated the richness and evolution of its offer to accompany AXA and its teams ever further, with product launches or major company acquisitions such as Nuance”, developing Artificial Intelligence solutions and use cases, notably for the healthcare sector.
AXA can also count on a solid, secure infrastructure, which complies with an exemplary respect for privacy. "We produce, collect and hold an unprecedented volume of data, acknowledges Cristiano Gianni. Protecting it is crucial to the success of our services and the trust of our customers." AXA has built its use cases with confidentiality by design in collaboration with its Data Protection Officers (DPO). The company is also working with the Italian Insurance Association to ensure that regulations on the use of sensitive health data are clear.
Pursuing innovation by creating an ecosystem of healthcare partners
Healthanea has shown great traction.
To illustrate this success, Cristiano Gianni lists several KPIs, all of which are green and rising. Since its launch 3 years ago, 1.7 million unique users have browsed the platform. "We are now a benchmark search engine for healthcare needs”, affirms Cristiano Gianni.
Traffic is increasing year on year, and the platform welcomed as many AXA Health Customers in the first four months of 2023 as it did in the whole of 2022.
60,000 assessments have been submitted to the Symptoms Checker and the use of teleconsultation has increased by 32% compared to 2022.
More than 2,000 requests were made to the Medical Concierge for consultations or examinations.
AXA has also improved its customer retention rate by 2 points between 2021 and 2022, and the Group achieves the best satisfaction score in the market, with a Net Promoter Score of 44, compared with a market average of 23. "All this tells us that our customers are satisfied," concludes Cristiano Gianni. Not to mention that "healthier customers make fewer claims", he points out. A virtuous circle, driven in part using those value-added services.
AXA continues to create new health-centric support services. The next major projects for the insurance company will be to integrate new services that could cover additional steps of the health customer journey and could reach people today not attracted or exclude by health coverages. To go even further, AXA aims to leverage Healthanea to "build a complete ecosystem that integrates partners from all adjacent healthcare sectors. Healthcare is a complex subject and requires us to leverage all our skills in a collaborative environment, always in a spirit of private-public partnership on a topic of the utmost importance such as health."
And when it comes to technological skills, Microsoft stands alongside its partner.
“In the early stages of the initiative, we consulted all possible technology partners. Microsoft was the most aligned with and complementary to our values.”
Cristiano Gianni, Head of Health Beyond Insurance, AXA
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