CVS Health is making investments in digital health and patient engagement tech across the enterprise, including a partnership with Simile to lean on "agentic twins" to test and pilot new programs.
The company has built these digital twins on 2.9 million consented responses from a group of more than 400,000 individuals, representing answers across more than 200 behavioral scenarios. This allows the AI versions to act as accurate stand-ins for the people they're based upon.
With these digital agents in place, the company's developers are able to test workflows, messages and other services and receive feedback that reflects how real people behave. It also makes it easier to test with hard-to-reach or underserved populations, CVS has found.
Sri Narasimhan, vice president and head of enterprise customer experience and insights at CVS, said the team conducts a moderated interview with the participants that collects an array of key demographic data as well as information on key behaviors like diet and lifestyle.
"Whereas the traditional researcher can probably get to you one time, maybe twice—usually after the fact, and not in an ongoing way—I now have you with us the whole time, representing the customer in everything we do," he said.
He said the customer voice is critical to building out tools and technology platforms that they'll truly engage with and benefit from. The digital twins provide key, real-time insights to support that process, he said.
The team sees significant value in exploring the link between patient engagement and outcomes. For example, medication adherence can be a challenge for a variety of reasons. Better understanding where patients face challenges in staying on a treatment can drive the development of supports for them.
By leaning on Simile's tech, the CVS team was able to significantly reduce the research time necessary to identify major barriers they could address. For example, working with the digital twins identified that trust in the patient's pharmacy, trust in the handling of their medication and convenience were all top action items.
Narasimhan said the team found that simplifying the experience of getting a refill was a clear and actionable piece of feedback that came from the process. For some patients, the potential inconvenience or stress of getting prescription refills was enough to deter them from starting a treatment plan altogether.
Patients also felt more comfortable having a connection to their clinicians, including pharmacists. That opened the door to other opportunities for the developers, he said.
"We have these easier digital tools," he said. "We know that they're going to be more willing to start, and therefore stay with us."
That said, while the digital twins do offer a clear boon in accelerating development while keeping the consumer perspective front-and-center, artificial intelligence alone isn't enough to make the equation work. Narasimhan said the team is identifying ways to continue validating the results that the digital twins are producing.
For instance, if one offers feedback that seems out of the ordinary, that opens the door for further research that may require engaging with consumers in a different way, he said.
Development work is also done within a clear governance framework to ensure the team is closely monitoring tone, fairness and safety.
Ultimately, Narasimhan said the goal is to do this development work while ensuring the patient's voice remains the core pillar.
"We are consumer-centric," he said. "This amplifies that voice for us in our operations, and truly is, in a sense, putting the money where our mouth is, by giving the consumers that opportunity to really give us real time, actionable insights, while we're building and developing solutions to serve them."