Client engagement is one of the most important factors in driving client success. Receiving personalized recommendations, ongoing support and real-time feedback allow clients to make the ongoing changes towards a healthier life. One way to promote client engagement, and success, is by collaborating with clients to create realistic, and achievable wellness goals. Setting wellness goals with your clients provides them with the actions they need to take, and the direction they need to move in.

Creating wellness goals is one thing, but monitoring a client’s progress requires the right tools. Healthie’s Goals Feature allows wellness professionals to create time-specific goals for each client. Through their client portal, clients are able to receive reminders of their goals, check-off completed items and easily see their completion progress for each goal.

In this deep-dive article, we’ll review how the Healthie’s Goals Feature can be used for both wellness providers and clients. Learn how to create, monitor and review wellness goals for your clients.

How to create wellness goals in Healthie

From your Healthie provider account, navigate to your client’s chart. The client’s chart will give you a quick overview of their important and relevant information, and from here you can navigate to your client engagement tools such as food journals, metrics, and goals.

Select the “Goals,” tab. On the top right, you’ll see a button “Create Goal.” Healthie’s Goals Feature was designed with SMART goals mind. This concept ensures that goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-specific. Following these criteria as you create your goals will help you build out goals that set your client up or success.

When creating a new goal, you’ll be asked to add in some details, including:

Goal Title

The name of your wellness goal is what your client will initially see. They can click on the goal within their client portal or from the mobile app to see more (like your description or subgoals). You’ll want to create a title that is specific and measurable.

For example, walk 30 minutes daily (as opposed to ‘increase baseline activity’) tells your client exactly what is expected from them for the goal. They can measure the duration of their activity, and know which type of activity to do.

Goal Description

Here you can elaborate on the benefits or details that are relevant to your client. If we’re using “walking more” as an example of a goal, why is this particular goal helpful for your client? Are they recovering from knee surgery and the doctor told them to start taking daily walks for their recovery? Are they at risk for heart disease and need to increase their physical activity level? Are they currently over exercising and this goal is to help replace a daily excessive run? Each client is individual — setting goals that speak to the benefits and overall larger goals they seek will help to maintain their motivation.

Goal Frequency  

Setting the frequency of your wellness goal allows you to automatically build in time-specific goals. Within Healthie, goals can be set as daily, weekly or one-time goals. To prevent clients from feeling overwhelmed, create a few goals with varying time-frames that they can work towards.

• Daily goal: walk 30 minutes every day after work
• Weekly goal: Take 1 hour on Sundays to meal prep lunches for the work-week
• One-time goal: make an appointment to see primary care doctor for annual physical in July

Goal Start Date

In some instances, a client’s goal may be more appropriate to start in the future. Perhaps they are going on vacation next week, and want to start their goals when they return. Or maybe their goal simply won’t apply until a future date, like a college student setting goals for when they return to campus.

Setting a start date for goals will allow you to customize when a client will start seeing this goal in their list. Scheduling out future goals will help clients to know what goals they are working towards, and what to expect.

To add a start date to a goal, uncheck the box that reads “goal starts immediately.” You’ll then be able to use the date-picker to select the start date range.

Goal End Date

Adding end-dates to certain goals can help showcase how goals build on each other over time. Perhaps for the first month of working together you want your client to walk 30 minutes every day, but in the second month you want to build on that. Now month two your client’s goal is to walk 40 minutes every day. Clients will be able to look back on their goal history, and see all of the smaller steps they’ve made in the past, driving them towards their larger goal (ie. run a ½ marathon).

To add an end date to a goal, uncheck the box that reads “goal never ends.” Just like with start dates, you’ll be able to now select a date for your goal. Edit your start/end dates at any time by modifying an existing goal.

Subgoals within Healthie’s goal setting

Setting subgoals allows you to show those concrete, achievable steps a client can take each day to accomplish their larger goal.

ie. Goal: Increase Non-starchy Vegetable Intake to 2 Servings Daily

1. Subgoal 1: have a salad at lunch daily
2. Subgoal 2: have a cooked veggie: broccoli, spinach or carrots at dinner daily  

By creating these collaborative and specific goals, you can help drive your clients success and motivation. Set your clients up for success by creating the right goals, and subgoals, that will help them stay focused between sessions.

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Apply a goal to your “Favorites” within Healthie

Have goals that you typically use with clients? Streamline your goal setting process by utilizing Goal Favorites. When you create a new goal, click the option at the bottom of the page to “Add Goal as Favorite.” This goal will now be available on your favorites list to apply to any other client accounts. Simply navigate to your client’s account > Goals > Create Goal. There will be a blue button on the top right of your screen that reads “Apply Favorite.” From there you’ll be able to view and select any of your past creates goals. You’ll still be able to modify the goal for your current client before saving.

Monitoring patient wellness goals progress within Healthie

The first mission of the Healthie Goals Feature is to allow providers and clients to build out achievable, specific goals. The second mission is to provide an engaging ways for clients to feel accountable and motivated to accomplish their wellness goals. There are several features of the Goals Feature dedicated towards client engagement that are visible when you go to you client’s chart and select “Goals.” You can see your client’s progress for the current day. By using the “Change Date” picker, you can see your client’s progress for the past week, month or a custom date range.

Here are some goal features that will indicate your client’s progress:

1. Goal completion rates

For each wellness goal, you’ll see the percent of progress made towards completing their goal (0-100%). Goals that have very little progress will be highlighted in red, moderate progress is yellow and mostly completed is green. Quickly glance through your client’s goals to identify where their accomplishments have been, and where they are still struggling.

In follow-up sessions, you can use goals as a way to structure the flow of your session. Review the successes your client has had, and discuss the challenges. If a client was unable to complete a goal, identify the barriers and consider adjusting your goal to be more achievable. You can edit a goal by clicking the three dots … in the “Actions” tab. Your client will not be able to edit goals that you’ve created, to allow you to maintain oversight and effectiveness of goal setting.

2. Goal Streaks

Within your client’s chart, you’ll notice the number of streaks on the top right. This number indicates how many times in a row a client has completed a goal. If they complete the same daily task 3 days in a row, they are on a streak! If they complete the same weekly goal 3 weeks in a row, they’ll start another streak. Clients will be able to see their streaks, and feel motivated to consistently achieve their goals. This will lead clients in creating long-lasting, healthy habits.

3. Customizable goals notifications

Automatic reminders are a great way to prompt clients to complete their wellness goals. Keep their goals top-of-mind by customizing how, and how often, they receive notifications. For EACH client you can adjust these settings based on how much accountability they made need.

To adjust these settings, navigate to your client’s profile > Actions > Settings. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen to reach the Goals Reminders Settings.

Clients can receive goals notifications through email and/or through the Healthie app. You may want to speak to your client and ask them if they have a preference. Choose between daily, weekly or monthly reminders. For clients who prefer (or don’t need) notifications, simply select “never” from the reminders.

Your Patients’ experience with goal setting in Healthie  

The Healthie Goals Feature is designed to be an engagement tool for clients. From their client portal, or mobile app, client’s will be able to:

• View their wellness goals
• Monitor their progress
• Check off completed goals or subgoals
• Receive in-app reminders to complete their goals
• Message their wellness provider with any questions re: their goals or challenges to completing

When working with clients, it’s best practices to discuss the goals you’ve set and review with clients your expectations from them. Work together to create your goals, and explain to your client how each goal will help them to achieve their overall wellness goals. Some topics you may want to cover in your goals discussion:

1. How often will you check in on their progress?
2. Should clients message you regarding their goals?
3. Is there an incentive if they complete their goals for the week/month to 100% completion?
4. Will you review goals during your follow-up sessions?
5. What happens if clients don’t complete their goals?

By setting these expectations upfront, and creating clear accountability, your client’s will better understand the actions they need to take in order to see results. This results-oriented, and goals-driven approach will help drive your clients’ progress, improve retention and achieve success.