Case Study: Healthfirst achieves 2x faster feature delivery and safer mobile member support during COVID with Split

Combat a Global Pandemic with Agile Development and Continuous Delivery

Healthfirst, New York’s largest not-for-profit health insurer serving 1.6 million members, faced an urgent challenge when COVID-19 surged: rapidly deliver mobile-first capabilities (live agent chat, 24/7 telemedicine, and NowPow social-service integration) to support members—many facing food and housing insecurity—without disrupting the member experience or overwhelming support teams.

Partnering with Split, Healthfirst used feature flags, targeted gradual rollouts, and data integrations to monitor wait times, system errors, and customer satisfaction in real time. This approach doubled deployment cadence (from six to three weeks), accelerated the mobile launch by three months, and by year-end 2020 enabled over 36,000 members to access NowPow and receive virtual care and support.

Healthfirst

Julian Gutierrez Ferrara

Senior Software Engineering Manager