A blog covering the health/care ecosystem and people.

The majority of Americans generally like the idea of remote home monitoring for health. 3 in 5 adults (62%) across all age groups say communication with doctors via home monitoring devices would improve their health. However, only 35% of people age 65 and over are interested in home health monitoring. Interest in remote home health monitoring decreases with age. The disconnect is that 90% of Americans age 65 and older have at least one chronic health condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Practice Fusion commissioned a survey from GfK Roper in November 2010 through the GfK Omnibus survey among 1,008 adults

Now that the turkey, champagne, stuffing and other glorious carbs have been consumed. the real dessert is whipped cream on the pumpkin pie: the gift of a conversation about Life and Grace. We each have our stories about how a loved one’s life has ended. If we’re lucky, that beloved person had a good death: in sleep, perhaps, or of simply old age with no hospital events or trauma. Then there are the Rest-of-Us who have the stories of long and painful endings. When you’re already in the situation of making tough health decisions, it’s tough, it’s emotional, it’s irrational,

While two-thirds of American adults use the internet (including social media) to seek health information, only 11% use a pharmaceutical company website most often. It is intriguing that 2 in 3 adults who seek information about health care online are looking for information on illnesses and conditions from a pharmaceutical company. But the pharma company website isn’t the top-of-mind, go-to place. In fact, 2/3 of health citizens whose households use prescription drugs say their trust in medications is not heavily influenced by advertising by pharmaceutical companies.  These insights into the new pharmaceutical consumer come out of The Evolving  Consumer and The

6 in 10 U.S. households connected to the Internet via broadband in 2009, rising from 9% in 2001. In the U.S., the gap in the adoption of broadband between lower-income households and higher-income people is 33% — 61% of people with $25,000 to $50,000 household income connect to the Internet at home via broadband; that proportion is 94% for households with over $100,000 a year. Adoption gaps in broadband persist in the U.S. based on income, urban/rural location, race, education, and level of disability. Differences in socio-economic and geographic characteristics explain much of the broadband adoption gap associated with disability

“If more than 5 billion people in the world have access to mobile phones (not TVs or PCs), then content delivered to or accessed from mobile phones is the best mass media pick for sharing health information,” asserts a report released in November 2010 from MobiHealthNews, The Fastest Growing and Most Successful Health & Medical Apps. Overall, health and medical apps grew by 66%. However, growth rates by categories vary: medication adherence, still a small category, was the single fastest-growing category of iPhone health apps between February and August 2010 growing by 131%, followed by three areas with similarly high growth rates

When four self-described health activists share their personal stories in the same physical (not virtual) room at the same time, in real time, it’s an exponentially moving and learning moment. WEGO Health convened a Socialpalooza event (#socialpalooza on Twitter) this week where an influential handful of health activists met face to face with some people who work in health industries. The result was a fruitful dialogue where both empowered patients and the suppliers who research, develop and market products serving those patients, learned a lot from each other. These Four Musketeers of health activism included  Alicia Staley (@stales on Twitter), who passionately shares her hard-won experiences in beating

With peoples’ adoption of mobile phones, broadband, and apps for which they pay out-of-pocket, the new person-centered medical home is…the home. Policy wonks can wax lyrically and econometrically spin models about how to bend the health cost curve. But patients are the most under-utilized resource in the U.S. health system, as Dr. Charles Safran testified to Congress in 2004. In 2010, patients are getting more engaged as they DIY more at-home: photograph development, travel planning, stock trades, and home improvement. So health care comes home. A column written by Dr. Steven Landers of the Cleveland Clinic, featured in the October 20th 2010 issue of

Sex, drugs, rock and roll, Victoria’s secret bras manufactured with formaldehyde, motivating kids to move about more, and texting potential sex partners your latest STD test results: the 2010 Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco was more about real, whole health and the person-patient than about cool new tech. Furthermore, the Health 2.0 Conference turned a lot of preconceptions on their head on October 7 and 8, 2010, in a standing-room–only ballroom at the Hilton Union Square. Who could have predicted that government employees would light the room up with high energy and innovative thinking more than a panel of illustrious

The $N zillion question – whether translated into Euros, yen, pounds, lira, or pesos – is how to get more quality care and access in national health systems, while curbing health spending. Health costs have increased faster than economic development in nearly all OECD countries in the past 15 years. For the acronym-challenged, the OECD is the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development – comprised of, generally, the most economically developed nations on Earth. This week, health maestros from OECD nations are meeting to wrestle this intractable challenge. Health costs consume about 9% of OECD countries’ budgets. This proportion of national GDPs

There’s more confusion among U.S. voters than ever about what health reform, the Accountable Care Act (ACA), means. The September 2010 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll reveals an electorate that’s not only confused, but quite split in their support — with those who oppose the law even stronger against it than the pro’s support it. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) survey found that the percentage of ACA proponents actually increased by 4 percentage points between August and September, from 45% to 49%. 41% of registered voters are “unfavorable,” and 10% still have no opinion about the law.  When it comes to

Their website now talks about it being the “Nutrition, Health and Wellness Company.” Most of us still think of it as the biggest food company in the world. It’s spending one-half billion dollars to expand in health. Nestlé, which brings baby food, bottled water, bars of chocolate and breakfast cereal to kitchen tables is now bringing us Health. The new group will be known as Nestlé Health Science. The company’s existing health business is already valued at about $1.6 billion.  “The combination of health economics, changing demographics and advances in health science show that our existing health care systems, which focus on treating

8 in 10 people want companies to help them make changes to their own behavior, including getting more physical activity, eating healthier, and reducing their impact on the environment, according to the 2010 Cone Cause Evolution Study. Even more moms — 9 in 10 — are looking for this kind of support from companies with which they do business. Health is top-of-mind when it comes to cause marketing. 8 in 10 people think that companies should support health and disease. Cone’s study shows that cause marketing hasn’t just gone mainstream: it’s been absorbed into shoppers’ consciousness and figures into personal spending

Most folks living in the U.S. are overweight or obese. In the 20 years between 1987 and 2007, the proportion of overweight people grew from 44% to 63% — and the percentage of obese adults doubled from 13% to 28%. As the chart illustrates, health care costs more than doubled for obese people, as well. This represents health spending on conditions like diabetes, coronary heart disease, and hypertension. In How Does Obesity in Adults Affect Spending on Health Care? the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzes the, if you’ll excuse the expression, growth of the nation’s body-mass index (BMI) over time,

Detractors of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC) contend that the ads promote consumers asking for pills they don’t often need, medicalize normal life conditions (such as menopause and sleeplessness), and drive up unnecessary medical spending. A team of researchers now finds that DTC can play an important, positive role in motivating health consumers to adopt healthy behaviors. “The intention to engage in healthy lifestyles was strengthened by exposure to familial risk cues in DTC ads and this effect was mediated through enhanced efficacy to take healthy actions,” the paper concludes. Familial risk cues engendered positive self-efficacy. This is the first empirical study that

When it comes to their paper medical records, people are most concerned about their ability to access them when they need them. 28% of Americans are more concerned about access than inaccuracies, fraudulent use of the record, loss, or portability to a new doctor. Practice Fusion commissioned this survey of American adults and how they feel about various aspects of paper-based medical records. Overall, 1 in 5 people worry about inaccuracies or outdated information in their records; 1 in 6 are concerned that records will be stolen or used fraudulently, and 1 in 10 fret that records will be lost, won’t be

Call them “kinder, gentler,” gamers, according to ComScore: women like gaming as much as men do, but the kinds of games they like are different from their male peers. I wrote about ComScore‘s report, Women on the Web: How Women Are Shaping the Internet, on July 30 2010. The post was titled, Women Are the Digital Mainstream, Especially in Health. The report includes detailed survey data on women’s use of games. The chart here illustrates the Mars vs. Venus differences in tastes for online games: men prefer action, adventure and sports, along with education. Women like online puzzles, card games, trivia,

Women, on average, have far more contact with the health care system over their lifetimes than men do.   So kicks off an analysis of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010’s (PPACA) impact on women, published by The Commonwealth Fund. Realizing Health Reform’s Potential explains that PPACA should insure some 15 million women as well as give fiscal relief to those women who are under-insured or have pre-existing conditions. One of the key underlying factors which stacks the deck against women in health insurance coverage is the fact that insurance companies see young women a higher risk than

People trust the Internet “cloud” to manage many parts of their personal information, especially photos, e-mail correspondence, contacts, and videos. But personal health and financial information? Not so much. The chart illustrates that only 1 in 5 global citizens use the cloud to manage personal health information. KPMG‘s report, Consumers & Convergence IV,  highlights peoples’ feelings about privacy and security of their personal information, from vacation pictures to 401(k) statements. The verdict: most people trust of the cloud to store and share most kinds of their information except for their medical and financial information. Two-thirds of people globally use cloud computing applications,

People with cancer can successfully manage their pain and depression through telephone contact with health providers and home monitoring, demonstrated by a clinical trial conducted among 405 patients in Indiana. The randomized trial findings are published in the July 14, 2010, issue of JAMA in, Effect of Telecare Management on Pain and Depression in Patients With Cancer. In the study, the Indiana Cancer Pain and Depression (INCPAD) trial assessed patients with pain, depression, and both depression and pain. Pain and depression are the most common physical and psychological symptoms in cancer patients, according to an AHRQ Evidence Report/Technology Assessment. These symptoms go largely untreated

Most consumers give thumbs-up to “fair and balanced” information on risks and benefits delivered in prescription drug ads on TV. But online? Not so much. This finding comes from one of the most highly anticipated surveys in the pharma business, the annual Prevention Magazine consumer survey on direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC). The FDA takes this survey seriously and its results inform FDA approaches to regulation. The 13th annual poll was published on July 15, 2010, titled, Consumer Reaction to DTC Advertising of Prescription Drugs. Most consumers find that “fair balance,” which is FDA required for presenting risks and benefits, is indeed “fair and balanced” on broadcast and in magazines. However,

1 in 2 global health citizens looks first to the Internet for advice to make health decisions; then, they look to doctors. This virtual tie for ‘first place’ in health information that supports health decision making is the New Second Opinion for at least one-half of the population, according to data gleaned through PricewaterhouseCoopers‘s Health Research Institute’s Global Consumer Survey. Traditional media, including print (newspapers and magazines) and broadcast (TV, radio) are go-to health information sources for about 1 in 4 health consumers. Social networking websites were found to be useful health information decision-support sources by 17% (say, nearly 1 in 5 people). Health

As Rite Aid partners up with American Well, here’s another example of the further retail-ization of health in the U.S. The subtext of this arrangement is the fact that the pharmacy is a touch-point for health consumers who seek trust, convenience, access, and an understandable market channel for health. Rite Aid will be the first pharmacy to test the American Well service that enables patients to interact online with providers. In this program, consumers will interact live online via Internet or phone with Rite Aid pharmacies from both their homes and private consultation rooms at select Rite Aid pharmacies. The consults will

Without trust, health consumers won’t engage with organizations who want to cure them, sell to them, promote to them, help them. Here’s what I told a group of  pharmaceutical marketers at The DTC Annual Conference in Washington , DC, on April 9, 2010. Let’s start with the World Health Organization’s definition of health: that is, the state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not just the absence of disease. This definition is being embraced by health citizens long before the silos in the health industry – including pharma – get it. That’s an important mindset to take on as

  The health care cost crisis has hit at least 1 in 2 American families, based on the latest Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll. KFF found that 30% of Americans have had trouble paying medical bills in the past 12 months. Challenges paying for health care increase if you’re black, Hispanic, earning under $40,000 a year, or….in poor health. There are two angles on dealing with the costs of health care dealt with in the KFF poll. First, looking to the government to regulate health costs: 42% of Americans said the government doesn’t regulate the cost of health insurance

“‘Intent’ is the new demographic,” say the folks at Ruder Finn, the PR agency. What are people trying to achieve every moment of the digital day? According to the firm’s Mobile Internet Index, people are spending 2.7 hours a day on the mobile Internet. The Index survey studies what reasons people have for using their mobile phones. This isn’t about deep-dive education; instead, the mobile web is for connecting, quick transactions, life in-the-moment. Immediacy is the currency of the mobile web. The illustration shows Ruder Finn’s first iteration of the Intent Index, which analyzed peoples’ use of the Internet, broadly

Being younger demographically doesn’t mean you’re younger, digitally-speaking. Your Real Age isn’t your Digital Age, according to Wells Fargo‘s survey into Americans’ use of advanced tools for daily tasks. The categories of peoples’ digital maturity include: – Digital teens, who are people who are online but don’t use all tools at a ‘high level’ – Digital novices are those people who manage basic tasks online but aren’t yet connecting with others online or managing more complex tasks – Digital adults have the highest digital age, as demonstrated by their using online tools for daily tasks, interacting with others online, and

Who do you trust the most in America? Nurses, pharmacists, doctors, and police officers. Who’s least trusted? Elected officials in Congress, car salesmen, stockbrockers, and…HMO managers. Gallup‘s annual Honesty and Ethics of Professions poll is out and finds that health providers and front-line health workers rank highest in the nation. Nearly 9 in 10 Americans say nurses have the highest integrity, followed by 2 in 3 Americans ranking pharmacists and doctors as high or very high. Integrity grades aren’t so high, though, for chiropractors and psychiatrists, ranked very high or high in ethics among 34% and 33% of Americans, respectively.

The book Connected was recommended by my colleague, intellectual beacon and friend, Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. In the midst of late nights analyzing health reform scenarios and medical microeconomics, I’ve made the time to read this book in its entirety. It’s been a worthwhile investment. Previously, the authors of Connected, Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, found evidence on connectedness in health in the areas of obesity, smoking cessation, binge drinking, and other lifestyle behaviors that directly impact good or bad health.  This week, another team of innovative thinkers led by John Caccioppo from the

New Yorkers who frequent Au Bon Pain, KFC, McDonald’s and Starbucks who noticed calorie counts on menu labels ordered 106 fewer calories at the point-of-purchase than people who didn’t pay attention to the information.   Here’s evidence that labeling in fast-food destinations works.   At the annual meeting of the Obesity Society in Washington DC this week, researchers are presenting results on how transparency of calorie information motivates many health citizens to change their choices based on nutritional knowledge.   Reuters reports some details from the study. Researchers in New York polled 10,000 diners at 275 locations of the most

While Congressfolk and political pundits await the President’s speech tonight about why and how to reform the health system, patients on-the-street and in-their-homes are getting on with their daily lives dealing with chronic diseases. In the U.S., 75% of health care costs annually go to ‘manage’ chronic conditions. That’s about $1.7 billion of the $2.2 billion spent on health care in 2007. Not waiting for a government agency or health plan to provide a recipe for self-care, a cadre of highly engaged health citizens have taken care into their hands and minds. “Participatory health,” David Lester of Theranos told me,

Americans love their cars, their houses, and their food. Based on a survey by ING Direct, the financial services company, these are the last 3 things we would sacrifice to save money. On the other hand, the most dispensable things for Americans include day care/nannies, cleaning services, education, and gifts. Women would be more likely to sacrifice health and fitness than men in the U.S. The ING survey compares the U.S. with eight other nations including Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Health and fitness appear more highly valued by people in France and Spain;

Most Americans believe that in fixing health care, we’ll be addressing the economy. This, according to a new Index of American health citizens’ confidence in the health economy. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation joins forces with the Center for Social Research at the University of Michigan (SRC) to bring this innovative measurement tool to policymakers and health citizens during this long, intense season of health reform. The SRC will include questions regarding health care, health insurance and the impact on families’ economic situations in its ongoing Surveys of Consumers. The SRC is well-known for its Index of Consumer Sentiment. A

What is value in health care? Every year we spend more and seem to get less, John Seng, Founder of Spectrum, told attendees of a webinar on the Spectrum Health Value Study on 12th May 2009. As we consumers spend more of our own money, we’ll be looking for greater value and “health ROI” from our health spending. Measuring value across a population is confounded by the fact that what one person decides to spend on ‘health’ can be different from another’s health spending choices. In other words, our personal health “marketbaskets” for health spending vary from person to person.

Elephant Pharm, the six-year-old alternative pharmacy chain based in northern California, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy papers two days ago. The vision of Elephant was to provide customers  with both traditional medicines along with homeopathic treatments. The store’s footprint of 12,000 feet held space for both product and services. Practitioners were available in the store with whom consumers could consult on a range of issues, from Ayurvedic herbs to treat headaches to yoga. Note that a similar company, Pharmaca, shares Elephant’s commitment to integrative medicines, but is based on a much smaller design of about 5,000 square feet. Pharmaca has 23

Call it the health insurance Blue-tique. Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield is opening storefronts in shopping malls to talk health insurance.   Highmark Direct will be the name on the front of this store, whose mission it will be to meet with sales staff from the insurance company to learn more about health insurance options and, before leaving the store, sign up for insurance the way a consumer might by a bed from a SelectComfort shop or a stereo component from Bose. The first Highmark Direct shop will be in Pittsburgh, PA. Highmark isn’t the first Blues plan to go

Nearly 1 in 2 women put off seeking health care because the cost was too high. The kinds of services delayed included visits to the doctor, medical procedures, and filling prescription medications. The fourth annual T.A.L.K. Survey was released this week by the National Women’s Health Resource Center (NWHRC), focusing on the declining economy and its impact on women and three dimensions of their health — physical, emotional, and fiscal. 40% of women say that their health has worsened in the past five years due to increasing stress and gaining weight, according to the survey. One of the most interesting

There’s more evidence that green = health. No, not tea, but more green space.   More specifically, access to green space lessens health disparities between the wealthy and the not-so-rich in the community.   Green spaces reduce the health gap between rich and poor, according to a study published in the Lancet, Effect of exposure to natural environment on health inequities: an observational population study by Dr. Richard Mitchell and Dr. Frank Popham, Scottish researchers in public health and geography, respectively.   Mitchell and Popham found that health disparities between the rich and the poor can be halved with citizens’

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has acquired the online health coaching company, HealthMedia. This will move the health supply company up the health care value chain further into the provision of health services. Nine years ago, I teamed with a Big Pharma on a scenario planning exercise about consumers and health care. One of our scenarios told the future-story of the consolidation/integration of information technology, pharma/life sciences, and health services to benefit consumer health. We now meet up with this future-story, and it’s J&J’s to tell.   I’ve written here in Health Populi about Walmart’s move toward pharmacy benefits management and

Welcome to the new influence landscape, says Universal McCann (UM), the global media agency. In When Did We Start Trusting Strangers: The How the Internet Turned Us All into Influencers, UM analyzed the online behaviors of thousands of Internet users in 29 countries. UM found that today, we trust strangers as much as close friends. Furthermore, “friendship is no longer local or face to face: it’s becoming distant and virtualized,” the report asserts. Most importantly, the power of social media affords everybody with access to the Internet to be an influencer. Social media adoption in this study includes: Read blogs/weblogs

Stress due to the economic downturn is causing more of us to be irritable, angry, sleepless, and self-medicating through food.   And stress in the workplace is costing business $300 billion a year, according to the American Psychological Association (APA), due to the loss of productivity, absenteeism, turnover and increased medical costs.   The APA completed its survey, Stress in America, in August 2008 — more than a month ago, well before yesterday’s biggest stock market fall in 4 years. The APA warns that the levels of stress felt by Americans due to the financial downturn can wreak significant havoc

About $7 billion is spent each year on cosmetics. Another $1.5 billion is spent on breast augmentation, $1.3 billion on lipoplasty, and nearly $1 billion on abdominoplasty — aka, “tummy tucks.” Beauty At Any Cost is an important report from the YWCA. The organization has quantified the economic costs of the never-ending search for ‘beauty,’ and broken down the health implications, and impacts on interpersonal relationships — especially as these issues translate to young girls. One of the most serious behaviors cited in this report include that fact that over 1/2 of teenage girls use unhealthy weight control behaviors such

Advertising Age analyzes census data on aging and diversity in America, and comes up with some interesting conclusions for consumer marketers. Here at Health Populi, we’re all-health, all-the-time, so I’m going to discuss author Peter Francese’s findings through our health lens. In addition, McKinsey published its insights into aging boomers in the report, Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation, which I will also discuss. Francese begins with the one-two punch that marketers in the U.S. are already faced with the economic downturn coupled with consumer-generated media (e.g., blogs, online videos, e-pinions.com, ad infinitum). The third challenge to add to these two market-shapers

  Most employees covered by health insurance favor health plans that provide access to and cover alternative medicine services.   Yet only one-half of these employees feel it’s important for a health plan to require employees to eat properly and exercise, and to provide evidence of such healthy behavior. There’s a disconnect in consumers’ minds between actual lifestyle behaviors and understanding how to use health benefits. I’ve talked about health plan literacy in Health Populi before. Guardian’s survey demonstrates a facet of that phenomenon. According to the 2008 Benefits & Behavior: Spotlight on Medical survey from Guardian Life Insurance Company,

There’s a growing cadre of older people online, and they’re an attractive demographic, according to Focalyst, a joint venture of the AARP and Millward Brown, a market research and branding company. The researchers found that “matures” spend 750,000,000 minutes a day on the Internet (sounds like a song from Rent–the AARP version of 525,600 Minutes). Focalyst calls the group of people age 62 and over “Matures Online.” The Insight Report: April 2008 finds that matures are just as likely to be persuaded by an Internet ad as younger consumers. Is this what Martha would consider a “good thing” or not-so-good?

While fiscal, billing and back office technologies universally proliferate home care, only 17% of agencies use some type of telehealth systems. However, 32% of agencies with over $6mm in annual revenue provide telehealth services. Thus, size matters when it comes to home health adopting telehealth technologies. These are just a couple of many important benchmarks published in the National Study on the Future of Technology and Telehealth in Home Care. Billed as the largest telehealth study in the history of home care, Philips unveiled this report in conjunction with the 13th annual American Telemedicine Association conference in Seattle. Philips partnered

Most Americans believe there are fair and reliable ways to gauge the quality of health care. 9 in 10 Americans are interested in their health plans having a website where you can rate doctors on issues like trust, communications, medical knowledge, availability and office environment – and participating on such social networks (THINK: The Health CAre Scoop or Zagat/WellPoint). The latest Wall Street Journal/HarrisInteractive survey published March 25 finds that 3 in 4 consumers favor patient satisfaction surveys – once again asserting they value opinions from peers (aka “people like me”) even more than those coming from institutions, whether private

The 2008 Edelman Health Engagement Barometer is out alongside the company’s annual Trust Barometer, and more than ever, people are trusting “people like me” more than they do institutions. This is the ninth iteration of the Trust survey. The toplines of the past four years show an important change in peoples’ trust perspectives. In 2005, Edelman found that trust in ‘established institutions’ and figures of authority began shifting to peers. By 2006, “A person like me” was the most credible spokesperson for companies. That year, people trusted employees significantly more than company CEOs. Edelman defines “a person like me” as

Or, The Lovely Bones (health care version).   I have an acquaintance whose bone density scan told her she is at high risk for osteoporosis. No surprise: the condition runs in her family. For several years, she has been paying a luxury-segment department store counter $300 every two months for her skin creme, which promises that she will be ageless as she ages into her fifties, sixties, and beyond.   But she has not yet filled her prescription for an osteoporosis-preventing drug.   She doesn’t have prescription drug coverage. She thinks the drug is too high-priced. It’s about $300 for