Loblaw’s Announces Their PC Health App

The provision of health care has undergone a shift in recent years. Specifically, siloed health care services are increasingly being replaced by family health teams, health care practitioners who work collaboratively to co-ordinate patient care under one roof. On the digital front, such a unified approach to the provision of health care has not yet been adopted. However, as reported by Born Digital, Loblaw’s is hoping to be the first to implement a coordinated approach to virtual healthcare through its PC Health app.

The goal of PC Health, according to Loblaw’s executives, is to integrate healthcare services at the palm of a patients hand. Once downloaded, the app takes users through an on-boarding questionnaire that ultimately creates personalized content and programs for a user. Services become available to users upon enrollment. The services available include live-chats with nurses, dieticians, physiotherapists, psychotherapists, physicians and more. Another service integrated within the platform is “Health Programs”, a program that offers educational content to guide users to solve a specific health problem, like managing stress. PC Health will provide PC optimum points to users of the app upon completion of certain health tasks. PC Health will also be integrated with Loblaw’s’ e-commerce business so users can browse foods and goods in the app. Eventually, the app is expected to directly tailor its offering of items with specific health programs, and provide additional rewards to encourage users to take-up the healthy choice prompts. The app further expects to grow its footing in the digital healthcare arena through the integration of wearable technology and data and the linking of these tools with PC loyalty programs. While much remains to be seen, it will be interesting to witness how the coupling of reward points with goal-oriented health programs will motivate and drive healthy behaviour.

Author: Nargis Fazli