A blog covering the health/care ecosystem and people.

In 2020, Genentech launched its first study into health inequities. The company spelled out their rationale to undertake this research very clearly: “Through our work pursuing groundbreaking science and developing medicines for people with life-threatening diseases, we consistently witness an underrepresentation of non-white patients in clinical research. We have understood inequities and disproportionate enrollment in clinical trials existed, but nowhere could we find if patients of color had been directly asked: ‘why?’ So, we undertook a landmark study to elevate the perspectives of these medically disenfranchised individuals and reveal how this long-standing inequity impacts their relationships with the healthcare system

Financial Experience (let’s call it FX) is the next big thing in the world of patient experience and health care. Patients, as health consumers, have taken on more of the financial risk for health care payments. The growth of high-deductible health plans as well as people paying more out-of-pocket exposes patients’ wallets in ways that implore the health care industry to serve up a better retail experience for patients. But that just isn’t happening. One of the challenges has been price transparency, which is the central premise of this weekend’s New York Times research-rich article by reporters Sarah Kliff and

“What if…healthcare happened where we live, work, play, pray and shop, delivering the highest levels of retail experience?” I asked and answered in my book HealthConsuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen. The chapter called “The new retail health” began with that “what if,” and much of the book responded with the explanation of patients evolving toward health consumers and, ultimately, health citizens empowered and owning their health and care. This week, Dollar General announced the hiring of its first Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Albert Wu. With that announcement, America’s largest dollar-store chain makes clear its ambitions to join a

Health care has increased its role in popular culture over the years. In movies in particular, we’ve seen health care costs and hassles play featured in plotlines in As Good as it Gets [theme: health insurance coverage], M*A*S*H [war and its medical impacts are hell], and Philadelphia [HIV/AIDS in the era of The Band Played On], among dozens of others. And this year’s Oscar winner for leading actor, Anthony Hopkins, played The Father, who with his family is dealing with dementia. [The film, by the way, garnered six nominations and won two]. When I say “Oscar” here on the Health

Our feet have become an important health focus during the pandemic, as the importance of exercise-as-medicine and mental health helper has looked to walking, running, and biking as good-for-us physical activities. The Mayo Clinic published an informative piece on Feet and the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the Cleveland Clinic posted advice on exercising during the pandemic earlier this month with the strong recommendation of walking. So it makes sense that the apparel category whose brand equity grew most between 2020 and 2021 was footwear, announced in the Brand Finance Apparel 50. Each year, Brand Finance evaluates the value of “brands,” as

After a year of living with and “in” the coronavirus pandemic, younger people in the U.S. have had to deal with over twelve months of quarantine and lockdown, going to school remotely from home, and distancing from friends. For most young people, the public health crisis has been more about that social distancing from friends, a collective sense of isolation, and mental and behavioral health impacts. These dynamics and these young health citizens’ coping mechanisms are captured in the report, Coping with COVID-19: How Young People Use Digital Media to Manage Their Mental Health. Three organizations collaborated to conduct and

With a third vaccine approved by the FDA for licking COVID-19, brought to market by Johnson & Johnson, the U.S. can expect an uptick in vaccinations among fellow health citizens. That’s such welcome news and a positive outlook for a healthier 2021. But there’s another angle on 2021 for which health care providers and health citizens alike should prepare: that is the excess deaths that will happen due to patients postponing needed health care, diagnostic tests, and preventive services that stem from people avoiding care in doctor’s offices and hospitals. The chart here comes from IQVIA’s latest study into COVID-19’s

Over the next 20 years, health care spending in the U.S. will migrate toward well-being and the early detection of disease, away from the funding of America’s sick-care system, according to Breaking the cost curve, a forecast of U.S. health economics in the year 2040 from Deloitte. Current spending on health care in America is roughly $4 trillion (with a “t”) dollars, approaching 20% of the nation’s economy. By 2040, spending is projected to be $8.3 trillion based on future health trends — not historic workflows and delivery mechanisms which would consume an additional $3.5 trillion — close to what we

The coronavirus pandemic disrupted and re-shaped the annual CES across so many respects — the meeting of thousands making up the global consumer tech community “met” virtually, both keynote and education sessions were pre-recorded, and the lovely serendipity of learning and meeting new concepts and contacts wasn’t so straightforward. But for those of us working with and innovating solutions for health and health care, #CES2021 was baked with health goodness, in and beyond “digital health” categories. In my consumer-facing health care work, I’ve adopted the mantra that our homes are our health hubs. Reflecting on my many conversations during CES

The pandemic has digitally transformed those people who could work from home, school at home, and undertake daily life-flows as health citizens tried to keep the coronavirus (and other people) at-a-distance. “Emerging hand-in-hand with place displacement, activity displacement is simply about the change in how people do things. Almost overnight, school lessons and doctors’ appointments were online. Yoga classes, concerts and weddings were streamed via Zoom,” Fjord Trends 2021 from Accenture Interactive observes. “Historically, people have often been quick to adopt new digital technology and slower to adapt to what it can help them achieve,” Fjord noted. But COVID-19 has

Each year, Americans rank nurses as the most honest and ethical professionals along, generally followed by doctors and pharmacists. In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., grade school teachers join the three medical professions in the annual Gallup Poll on the top-ranked professions for honest and ethical behavior in America as we enter 2021 with many U.S. hospitals’ intensive care units at full capacity….and schools largely emptied of students. The three health care professions scored their highest marks ever achieved in this Gallup Poll, which has been assessing honesty and ethics in America since 1999. Nurses are

Staying home, being clean, staying entertained, eating well, and self-caring for healthcare….these are the major factors underpinning the twenty fastest-growing brands of 2020, based on Morning Consult’s annual look at the topic. Let’s look into these categories by brand, and connect the dots for health, medical care, and well-being… Connectivity as a social determinant of health. Zoom was the fastest-growing brand of the year, with 26% of U.S. consumers saying they would consider purchasing the service in November compared with 11% in January. Zoom morphed from a business meeting platform to a consumer and family-connecting service spiking on holidays like

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, women have experienced more than the direct physical, clinical impact of COVID-19: beyond “lives,” women’s livelihoods, financial health and emotional well-being have been hard-hit. This is true on both a global basis as well as in the United States. In that context, last week I engaged in a fascinating conversation with Varsha Rao, CEO of Nurx, to discuss the current state of women and health/care in America, and some thoughts about the future. If you’ve had the TV on sometime since March 2020, one of many millions of people in the U.S. spending

“If you build it, he will come,” the voice of James Earl Jones echoes in our minds when we recall the plotline of the film, Field of Dreams. A quick summary if you don’t know the movie: the “it” was a baseball field to be built in a rural cornfield. The “he” was a baseball player, ultimately joined by a dream-team of ball players who would convene on that dreamy field to play an amazing game. Today, the day after Pfizer announced a 90% benefit for its coronavirus vaccine, bolstering Wall Street returns on 9th November 2020, two new consumer

As patients returned to in-person, brick-and-mortar health care settings after the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic, they re-enter the health care system with heightened consumer expectations, according to the Beryl Institute – Ipsos Px Pulse report, Consumer Perspectives on Patient Experience in the U.S. Ipsos conducted the survey research among 1,028 U.S. adults between 23 September and 5 October 2020 — giving consumers many months of living in the context of the coronavirus. This report is a must-read for people involved with patient and consumer health engagement in the U.S. and covers a range of issues. My focus in this

In May 2020, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) re-visited the acronym, “PPE.” As OED evolves the definition of PPE, the wordsmiths could borrow from OSHA’s website, noting that PPE, “is equipment worn to minimize exposure to hazards that cause serious workplace injuries and illnesses. These injuries and illnesses may result from contact with chemical, radiological, physical, electrical, mechanical, or other workplace hazards. Personal protective equipment may include items such as gloves, safety glasses and shoes, earplugs or muffs, hard hats, respirators, or coveralls, vests and full body suits.” Perhaps Definition 3 in the OED could be updated by a blog

COVID-19 is re-shaping all industries, especially health care. And the pharma industry is challenged along with other health care sectors. In fact, the coronavirus crisis impacts on pharma are especially accelerated based on how the pandemic has affected health care providers, as seen through research from Accenture published in Reinventing Relevance: New Models for Pharma Engagement with Healthcare Providers in a COVID-19 World. For the study, Accenture surveyed 720 health care providers in general practice, oncology, immunology, and cardiology working in China, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the U.S., in May and June 2020. Top-line, Accenture points to four

The pandemic has become a sort of forcing function on all aspects of daily living, include health care. Deloitte’s latest wave of health care consumer market research updates the COVID-19 impacts on the U.S. health care landscape and asks the question in the study report’s title: “Are consumers already living the future of health?” For the general survey of U.S. Health Consumers, Deloitte polled 4,522 U.S. adults 18 and older online in February and March 2020. Deloitte conducted an additional 1,510 interviews with consumers in April to gauge peoples’ perspectives on the pandemic, health and well-being. In the Great Lockdown

My friends… It’s time in this pandemic journey that I take a full week to re-charge and bask in the midst of nature, a lake, farm-to-table food, wine-making, and the love of and therapeutic time with my wonderful husband. My gift to you all this week, 10th – 14th August, is to share with you pages from my “ABCovid-19 Journal” that I created/curated in the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic. We all have our hacks for managing stress and discomfort, and in the first weeks of COVID-19, this was my life-saver. Journaling is one of my self-care strategies; think

Today kicks off the first all-virtual conference of the ATA, the American Telemedicine Association. ATA’s CEO Ann Mond Johnson and team turned on a dime over the past few months, migrating the already-planned live conference scheduled in early May to this week, all online. I’ll be midwifing a panel this afternoon at 440 pm Eastern time, initially focused on how health care can garner patient loyalty. That theme was given to us in the fourth quarter of 2019, when initial planning for ATA 2020 had begun. What a difference a few months make. Not only has ATA pivoted to an

The 21st Century Cures Act emphasizes patients’ control of personal health information. ONC rules issues in March 2020 called for more patient-facing health tools and apps to bolster health consumer engagement and empowerment. But the emergence of the coronavirus in the U.S. revealed many weakness in the American health care system, one of which has been health inequities faced by millions of people — especially black Americans, who have sustained higher rates morbidity and mortality for COVID-19. There have also been digital health divides found in the COVID-19 pandemic, discussed in a timely essay in JAMA, Digital Health Equity as

Stress is up, smoking increasing, drinking more alcohol….Americans are tapping into a variety of coping mechanisms in the coronavirus outbreak, with health on their collective minds. Toluna and Harris Interactive are collaborating on the COVID-19 Barometer, publishing biweekly data on consumers’ views on the coronavirus pandemic. The data here are a snapshot of consumers taken through the Toluna-Harris poll conducted among 1,047 U.S. adults between 9-20 April 2020. The first chart shows various life-flows Americans have adopted in April, all risk factors impacting peoples’ overall health status and mental well-being. There were demographic differences across these factors: more women felt

With President Trump’s somber speech from the Oval Office last night, we wake up on 12th March 2020 to a ban on most travel from Europe to the U.S., recommendations for hygiene, and call to come together in America. His remarks focused largely on an immigration and travel policy versus science, triaging, testing and treatment of the virus itself. Here is a link to the President’s full remarks from the White House website, presented at about 9 pm on 11 March 2020. Over the past week, I’ve culled several studies and resources to divine a profile of the U.S. consumer

The coronavirus has shaken U.S. consumer confidence, both in terms of financial markets and personal health risks. COVID-19 is re-shaping peoples’ behavior and daily choices, from using public transit to choosing where to shop, based on Morning Consult’s National Tracking Poll #200276 conducted February 28-March 1, 2020. Morning Consult surveyed 2,200 U.S. adults, finding that 3 in 4 Americans were concerned about the coronavirus outbreak. The first chart from the survey shows various consumer activities by peoples’ likelihood of choosing to do them. Clearly, our daily life-flows outside of our homes have been impacted by our perceived risks of the coronavirus:

Most employers and their workers see the benefits of digital health in helping make health care more accessible and lower-cost, according to survey research published in Health on Demand from Mercer Marsh Benefits. Interestingly, more workers living in developing countries are keener on going digital for health than people working in wealthier nations. Mercer’s study was global, analyzing companies and their employees in both mature and growth economies around the world. In total, Mercer interviewed 16,564 workers and 1,300 senior decision makers in companies. The U.S. sample size was 2,051 employees and 100 decision makers. There’s a treasure trove of insights

Most Americans associate more optimistic words with human genetics research than they do darker implications: “curious,” “hopeful,” “amazed.” and indeed “optimistic” ranked the top four impressions in peoples’ minds, based on a survey form the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG). Below these perceptions are a few concerning concepts such as “cautious,” “concerned,” “hesitant, and “skeptical,” the poll found. Based on the relatively positive views on genetics research, most Americans support increasing Federal funding for that research: 74% said it was somewhat or very important to do so, compared with 15% saying it was not important. People value genetics research

The digital health presence at CES 2020 is the fastest-growing segment of consumer technologies at the Show this year, increasing by 25% over 2019. Heart-focused technologies are a big part of that growth story. In fact, in our search for devices and tools underpinned with clinical proof, evidence is growing for consumer-facing technology for heart-health, demonstrated by this year’s CES. Wrist-worn devices, digital therapeutics, patient engagement platforms, pharma and health plans converged at this year’s CES, with the professional association “blessing” of the American College of Cardiology who granted a continuing medical education credit for physicians attending a one-day “disruptive

Today is Day 1 of two Media Days at #CES2020 in Las Vegas, kicking off this manic week of the Consumer Electronics Show at the Mandalay Bay convention center. For several years, I’ve convened with journalists and industry analysts from around the world for these two days before the “official” opening of CES to hear the latest news from some of the largest tech-focused companies on Earth. Announcements come from across industry sector — from automotive and transportation, telecoms, consumer goods, entertainment, social media, travel, and retail…with platform technologies playing a role including but not limited to AI, AR/VR/XR (the

There’s something like cognitive dissonance as I prepare my 2020 Health Populi TrendCast of what to expect in the health/care ecosystem in the new year. One of my key pillars for health-making is food-as-medicine, and that opportunity in this moment resonates in this holiday season with Dickens’ “Best of Times, Worst of Times” context-setting that kicks off Great Expectations. In the “best of times” part of the food+health equation, we recognize the growing role of grocery stores, food-tech and food manufacturers in the health/care landscape. A current example comes from Kroger, partnering with Ascension’s health system in Tennessee, enhancing the organization’s

While customer satisfaction with health insurance plans slightly increased between 2018 and 2019, patient satisfaction with hospitals fell in all three settings where care is delivered — inpatient, outpatient, and the emergency room, according to the 2018-2019 ACSI Finance, Insurance and Health Care Report. ACSI polls about 300,000 U.S. consumers each year to gauge satisfaction with over 400 companies in 46 industries. For historic trends, you can check out my coverage of the 2014 version of this study here in Health Populi. The 2019 ACSI report bundles finance/banks, insurance (property/casualty, life and health) and hospitals together in one document. Health

“Listen to your patient; he is telling you the diagnosis,” Dr. William Osler is quoted to have said around the turn of the 20th century. Dr. Osler had been a strong advocate for the physician-patient conversation to inform the doctor’s diagnostic acumen and improve patient outcomes. This year is the centennial of Dr. Osler’s passing, so it’s especially timely that I introduce this post with his legendary assertion in the context of kicking off the 2019 Medecision Liberation conference. This meeting convenes the company’s clients, partners, and staff to share best practices, spark insights and learnings, and enable networking between

As patients have taken on more financial responsibility for first-dollar costs in high-deductible health plans and medical bills, hospitals and health care providers face growing fiscal pressures for late payments and bad debt. Those financial pressures are on both sides of the health care payment transaction, stressing patients-as-payors and health care financial managers alike. I’m speaking to health industry stakeholders on patients-as-payors at Cerner’s Now/Next conference today about the patient-as-payor, a person primed for engagement. That’s as in “Amazon-Primed,” which patients in their consumer lives now use as their retail experience benchmark. But consumers-as-patients don’t feel like health care today

Health care system financing, delivery, and workflows widely vary across nations around the world. Philips surveyed health care professionals and consumers living in 15 countries, from North America to Asia, and found that these health systems share one over-arching objective: to provide quality care with improved experiences for both patients and healthcare professionals. Being Philips, what underpins that quality and experience is technology; Philips explored telehealth, AI, digital health records (DHRs), and other digital health tools that can engage patients. Philips published results from this global study in The Future Health Index 2019, themed “Transforming healthcare experiences, exploring the impact

As patients continue to morph into health care payers, they’re increasingly expecting value-for-money, transparency, and customer experiences that show respect, bolster trust, and deliver quality services. Is that so much to ask from health care providers? Sure is, as it turns out, based on this year’s annual report from Kaufman Hall, the 2019 State of Consumerism in Healthcare: The Bar is Rising. For several years, Kaufman Hall have developed an Index of healthcare consumerism based on several pillars that, together, gauge health care providers’ performance on consumer health engagement. Providers fall into one of four tiers, ranging from Tier 1

Today, I am speaking with marketing leaders who are members of CHPA, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association on this very topic. This is CHPA’s 2019 Marketing Conference being held at the lovely historic Hotel du Pont in Wilmington, DE. The gist of my remarks will be to focus on the evolving retail health ecosystem, with my HealthConsuming lens on health/care, everywhere. And timing is everything, because today is International Self-Care Day to promote peoples’ health engagement. The plotline begins with a tale of two companies — CVS/health and Best Buy — discussing these two organizations’ approach to acquiring companies to expand

“Drugmakers Push Their Prices Higher” is the top story under the Business & Finance banner in today’s Wall Street Journal. That’s in terms of drugs’ list prices, which most patients don’t pay. But drug costs to patients are in the eye of the beholder, who in a high-deductible plan or Medicare Part D donut hole becomes the first-dollar payer. Patients continue to face rising drug costs, pushing them into what I’ve been thinking about as luxury-goods territory. The economic definition of a luxury good is a product for which demand increases more than proportionally as income rises, so that spending

There are many forms of magic inspired by Disney, the company. There’s the obvious attraction, the Magic Kingdom, that was Walt’s original destination vision, “imagineered” in 1932. Then there are other kinds of magic. The one I’m deep into in the moment is inspiration, ideation, and “reimagineering” my own thinking about work, legacy, and social justice. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to spend much of this week at the inaugural Disney Institute Women’s Leadership Summit. The Institute convened about 300 women (and a handful of brave “He-for-She” men keen on diversity) in Orlando to learn about and brainstorm

Most U.S. healthcare providers are spending more time, effort and capital with an eye to engaging with patients-as-consumers, a trend quantified in the report, the 2019 State of Consumerism in Healthcare: The Bar is Rising from Kaufman Hall, summarizing results from this year’s healthcare consumerism index survey conducted among about 200 healthcare providers. “Legacy organizations will need premier-level consumer capabilities to compete in today’s increasingly consumer-centric environment,” Kaufman Hall recommends. Providers identified the key capability gaps for consumer-centric care as improving the consumer experience, offering a variety of facility-based access points, utilizing digital tools for health engagement, providing price transparency,

With lower expectations of and satisfaction with health care, Millennials in America seek three things: available, accessible, and affordable services, research from the Transamerica Center for Health Studies has found. Far and away the top reason for not obtaining health insurance in 2018 was that it was simply too expensive, cited by 60% of Millennials. Following that, 26% of Millennials noted that paying the tax penalty plus personal medical expenses were, together, less expensive than available health options. While Millennials were least likely to visit a doctor’s office in the past year, they had the most likelihood of making a

People over 50 in the U.S. that are likely to vote in the 2020 Presidential election are keenly interested in lowering the cost of prescription drugs, according to a survey conducted by AARP in February and March 2019. Most people over 50 take prescription drugs daily; one-third take two or three Rx’s regularly, and one in five older people take six or more prescription medicines regularly. Thus, prescription drugs are part of most older Americans’ daily life-flows and household spending considerations. About two-thirds of older people who are likely to vote say that Rx prices are “unreasonable,” including 67% of

Consider the voice of a patient before the advent of the Internet in the digital 1.0 world, and then the proliferation of social networks in v 2.0. One patient could talk with another over their proverbial neighborhood fence, a concerned parent at the PTA meeting with others dealing with a children’s health issue, or a recovering alcoholic testifying in person at an AA session. Today, the voice of the patient is magnified one-to-many, omnichannel and multi-platform — via video, blogs, podcasts, social networks, listservs….and, yes, still in live forums like AA meetings, church basements, Y-spaces, and the Frazzled Cafe meet-ups

Patients in the U.S. assume the role of payor when they are enrolled in high-deductible health plans. People are also the payor when dealing with paying greater co-payments for prescription drugs, especially as new therapeutic innovations come out of pipelines into commercial markets bearing six-digit prices for oncology and other categories. For mainstream Americans, “the math doesn’t add up” for paying medical bills out of median household budgets, based on the calculations in the 2019 VisitPay Report.  Given a $60K median U.S. income and average monthly mortgage and auto payments, there’s not much consumer margin to cover food, utilities, petrol,

Seeking health information online along with researching other patients’ perspectives on doctors are now as common as booking dinner reservations and reading restaurant reviews, based on Rock Health’s latest health consumer survey, Beyond Wellness for the Healthy: Digital Health Consumer Adoption 2018. Rock Health has gauged consumes’ digital health adoption fo a few years, showing year-on-year growth for “Googling” health information, seeking peer patients’ physician and hospital reviews, tracking activity, donning wearable tech, and engaging in live telehealth consultations with providers, as the first chart shows. The growth of tracking and wearable tech is moving toward more medical applications beyond fitness

Fewer than one-half of consumers trust in government and media. Three-quarters trust employers, who in 2019 are the top-trusted institution according to the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer released last week in Davos at the World Economic Forum. Consumers in the U.S. over-index for trust in employers, with 80% of people saying they have a strong relationship with “my employer,” compared with 73% of Britons, 66% of the French, and 59% of people in Japan. What’s underneath this is employers being trusted to provide certainty: most workers look to their employer to be a trustworthy source of information about social issues and

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a “caveat” is, “a warning to consider something before doing anything more.” It is fitting that CES is held in Las Vegas, land of high risk and, with a lot of luck, reward. With that theme in mind, I depart LAS airport tonight on an aptly-named red-eye flight back home after spending an entire week here. I’m pondering not what I saw — some of which I covered daily over the past week — but what I didn’t see. Consider these the caveats for health/care at #CES2019. In no particular order… Where was the Chairman of

From culture to travel, food and drink to retail and beauty, health will be baked into consumer goods and experiences in 2019. Welcome to The Future 100: 2019 from The Innovation Group at JWT. In the 100 emerging trends across ten categories, the future is clearly health-driven, according to the tea-leaf readers at JWT.a Health is all over, Culture Tech and innovation Travel and hospitality Brands and marketing Food and drink Beauty Retail Luxury Health (as a category itself) Lifestyle. I’ve mined this report in previous years – you can review my findings from the 2017 report here in the Health

The future of healthcare is not about being sick, Prof. Dr. Koen Kas believes. Having spent many years in life sciences in both research and as an entrepreneur, Koen now knows that getting and staying healthy isn’t about just developing medicines and med-tech: optimally, health requires a tincture of delight, Koen advises in his breakthrough, innovative book, Your Guide to Delight. Healthcare must go beyond traditional user-centered design, Koen’s experience has shown, and aspire toward design-to-delight. The concept of “delight” in healthcare, such as we experience in hospitality, grocery stores, and entertainment, is elusive. I’ve observed this, too, in my

When I asked my longtime colleague and friend Robert Mittman, with whom I collaborated at Institute for the Future for a decade, how he managed international travel and jet lag, he said simply, “The time zone you’re in is the time zone you’re in.” This lesson has stayed with me since I received Robert’s advice over twenty years ago. Over the next two weeks, as I work alongside colleagues and clients in the EU and soon-to-Brexit UK, I am in time zones five and six hours later than my home-base of US Eastern Time. But the time zones I’m working

California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a net neutrality bill this weekend. Gov. Brown’s proverbial swipe of the pen accomplished two things: he went back to the Obama-era approach to ensure that internet service providers treat all users of the internet equally; and, he prompted the Department of Justice, representing the Trump Administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to launch a lawsuit. California, home to start-ups, mature tech platform companies (like Apple, Facebook and Google), and countless digital health developers, is in a particularly strategic place to fight the FCC and, now, the Department of Justice. Nearly two dozen other states