CVS Health is investing in digital health and patient engagement technology across the enterprise, including a partnership with Simile to leverage “agent twins” to test and pilot new programs.
The company built these digital twins based on 2.9 million agreed responses from a group of more than 400,000 people, representing responses across more than 200 behavioral scenarios. This allows the AI version to act as an accurate stand-in for the people it is based on.
By deploying these digital agents, the company’s developers can test workflows, messages, and other services and receive feedback that reflects the behavior of real people. It also makes it easier to test hard-to-reach and underserved populations, the CVS study found.
Shri Narasimhan, vice president and head of enterprise customer experience and insights at CVS, said the team conducted moderated interviews with participants and collected a range of key demographic data and information on key behaviors such as diet and lifestyle.
“Traditional researchers can reach out to you maybe once, maybe twice, after the fact rather than in an ongoing way, but I’m now with you all the time and representing the customer in everything we do,” he said.
He said the voice of the customer is critical to building tools and technology platforms that customers truly use and benefit from. Digital twins provide critical real-time insights to support that process, he said.
The team believes there is great value in investigating the association between patient engagement and outcomes. For example, medication adherence can be a challenge for a variety of reasons. A better understanding of the challenges patients face in continuing treatment can facilitate the development of supports for patients.
By relying on Simile’s technology, the CVS team was able to significantly reduce the research time required to identify key barriers that could be addressed. For example, by leveraging digital twins, we found that patient trust in the pharmacy, trust in medication handling, and convenience were all top action items.
Narasimhan said the team found that simplifying the experience of receiving refills was clear and actionable feedback from the process. For some patients, the potential inconvenience and stress of refilling their prescriptions was enough to deter them from starting a treatment plan at all.
Patients also felt more comfortable connecting with clinicians, including pharmacists. This opens the door to other opportunities for developers, he said.
“We have these easier digital tools,” he said. “We know they’re going to start being more aggressive, so they’re going to stay with us.”
That said, while digital twins offer clear benefits in terms of accelerating development while keeping the consumer perspective top of mind, artificial intelligence alone is not enough to make the equation work. Narasimhan said the team is identifying ways to continue validating the results produced by digital twins.
For example, he said, providing feedback that seems unusual opens the door to further research that may involve engaging with consumers in other ways.
Development work also happens within a clear governance framework, ensuring teams closely monitor tone, fairness, and safety.
Ultimately, Narasimhan said, the goal is to conduct this development work while ensuring that the patient voice remains at the core.
“We are consumer-centric,” he said. “This amplifies our voice in our work and gives us the opportunity to provide real-time, actionable insights to consumers while we build and develop the solutions that serve them, so in a way, we are literally putting our money where our mouth is.”
