Welltok - Woman of the Year - Technology

Company: Welltok
Company Description: Welltok drives consumer actions that matter. Only Welltok delivers solutions built on a single, secure platform that includes a massive consumer database, predictive analytics and multi-channel engagement that drives people to take actions. As the award-winning consumer activation company, healthcare organizations and others trust Welltok to activate their populations in meaningful ways.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Woman of the Year - Technology

Nomination Title: April Gill

Inspired by her family’s healthcare challenges, April Gill has dedicated her 20+ year career to improving our healthcare system. She believes the disparities in care that plague our system based on race and socioeconomic divides can be addressed with advanced analytics and technology. April feels she has a responsibility to understand and address these issues systemically and is passionate about leveraging technology to improve access to care and provide services to individuals who may not otherwise have access.

Under April’s guidance and strategic leadership, Welltok has:

-Grown our Connect Partner Ecosystem by 90% over the past two years to include more diversified resources, like mental health and family fertility benefits

-Relaunched our text4baby program to improve maternal health equity for nearly two million new and expecting moms

-Conducted vaccine awareness, medication adherence or prevention outreach programs for 4 out of the largest 5 health plans

-Issued $100 million in rewards for healthy activities

-Promoted vaccine awareness and mental health education programs to reach underprivileged populations

-Led development of a social determinants of health (SDOH) solution to reduce health disparities and ensure all populations are represented

Last September, April was selected to participate in the Health Equity Impact Experience. She collaborated with peers to bring awareness and change to healthcare and brought those learnings and ideas back to Welltok and her community.As a frequent conference speaker, April has bravely shared her personal experiences with diversity and inclusion. Employees reported learning more from a recent company presentation than any diversity course could ever provide. A colleague said, “April’s story regarding racial equality is so impactful! In this environment, having “real” conversations are almost acts of bravery, but they will drive change.”

Thanks to April, Welltok has committed to equity in our hiring practices, expanding educational and awareness opportunities for our workforce – approximately 66% of Welltok’s employees are individuals who represent ethnic and gender diverse backgrounds. Additionally, she identified ways to increase equity across leadership: three recent senior vice president promotions were all impactful women, and VP+ executive leadership is 40% female. April is also actively mentoring emerging leaders and advocating for legislation focused on equity.

April and her team continuously work to improve people’s total wellbeing and develop effective solutions for our clients and their constituents. She helped build the largest consumer database of social determinants of health and designs Welltok’s solutions to provide personalized wellbeing support for millions. She also helps startups – even serving as a beta tester for a nutrition program that her bi-racial family with a history of diabetes saw benefits from through an organization that eventually became a partner.

April is a leader behind several Welltok solutions including a new, enhanced technology-enabled Consumer Activation solution called SmartReach™ designed to dramatically improve client outreach performance by reaching the right people with personalized multi-channel content to drive more people to take action, while seamlessly tracking results and ROI. April and her team have been instrumental in developing this unique offering that helps our clients predict with up to 90% probability who is likely to need or do – or not need or not do – something in the future.

It’s no secret the pandemic accelerated the use of digital health solutions for things like condition management and telemedicine. April helped position Welltok to serve not only individuals who need support right now because they carry risk, but also those who are receptive to specific programs or resources. Getting people vaccinated requires personalized and consistent outreach – key tactics April and her team developed into Welltok’s COVID-19 vaccine solution to help our communities receive accurate information about the virus and get their shot.

“We’re already using a combination of consumer data, customer data, and advanced analytics to identify individuals who have specific risks or needs – and understanding consumer attitudes about COVID was a natural extension of the work we already do. It was also born out of seeing how our customers were struggling to adjust quickly and needed to communicate to their people about COVID-19 and what to expect as they’re accessing care," said April.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials

April was recently featured on the Passionate Pioneers podcast with Mike Biselli discussing Welltok's COVID-19 solution and the strategy behind it: https://healthpodcastnetwork.com/episodes/passionate-pioneers-mike-biselli/expert-coronavirus-updates-with-april-gill-session-39

In March 2021, April was a guest on the Betr Health podcast, "Quacks and Hypochondriacs"hosted by Dr. Bill Ferro.Here, she discusses how an effective wellbeing strategy can activate and engage people by leveraging social determinants of health: https://pod.co/quacks-and-hypochondriacs/your-wellness-plan-is-broken-not-you-with-welltoks-april-gill

In this Denver Business Journal article from March 2021, April discusses how Welltok is combatting vaccine hesitancy: https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2021/03/02/welltok-platform-covid-19-vaccine-communication.html

In this HealthLeaders article from January 2021, April is interviewed about Welltok's recent survey highlighting people's attitudes about the COVID-19 vaccine and communication strategies for health systems and providers: https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/clinical-care/survey-respondents-69-say-they-want-get-coronavirus-vaccine

In June 2020, April was quoted in this article from Insurance Innovation Reporter about Welltok's partnership with Prudential Financial, bringing a robust financial toolkit to Welltok's Total Wellbeing Solution: https://iireporter.com/prudential-partners-with-welltok-for-employee-wellbeing/

In this Electronic Health Article, April writes about the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and how providers could leverage SDOH to understand patient risks: https://electronichealthreporter.com/consumers-weigh-in-on-sdoh-how-this-can-help-providers/