The economics of mHealth – incentives align more easily outside of U.S., but times (and incentives) are a’changing
A global analysis of mobile health (mHealth) by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) for Telenor, the telecomms company, illustrates many forms of return-on-investment using mobile platforms in health: Improved quality of life for individuals and families A more educated society Lower absenteeism for employers, and Greater incomes for people. Together, these micro-benefits yield macro societal benefits such as freeing up (acute) health systems due to a lower burden of chronic care; positive impacts on people, labor participation, and productivity; and, long-term economic growth. BCG believes that, “the smartphone is the most popular technology among doctors since the stethoscope.” That phone can
Under 10% of people manage health via mobile: a reality check on remote health monitoring from HIMSS
With mobile health consumer market projections for ranging from $7 billion to $43 billion, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, a casual reader might think that a plethora of health citizens are tracking their health, weight, food intake, exercise, and other observations of daily living by smartphones and tablets. But as the chart shows, health self-trackers number around 1 in 20 U.S. adults, according to a survey conducted for HIMSS Analytics and sponsored by Qualcomm Life. HIMSS Analytics’ report, A New Prescription for Chronic Disease: remote monitoring devices, was published in conjunction with the annual HIMSS conference which highlights the latest health information technology
HIMSS 2012 in retrospect – from patient engagement to Big Data. Viva Las Vegas or Tumbling Dice?
The record attendance at HIMSS12, in terms of both attendees (numbering some 38,000) and exhibitors, illustrated just how hot health information technology has become in the 20 years since I first began attending this meeting — when it was only a few thousand hospital computer geeks and materials managers picking up pocket protectors and calculators from vendors. At this year’s conference, the major concerns were when Stage 2 meaningful use details would be revealed. HIMSS communications leadership in the press room thought it would be Tuesday, then Wednesday. Finally, it was Thursday the 23rd of February when Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for Health IT at the Department
Connected Health: countries’ vary in their health IT connectedness, but US patients are ready, willing and welcoming EHRs
How electronically connnected and communicative are nations’ health information infrastructures? Accenture has answered that question in its report, Making the Case for Connected Health. Accenture built a “connected health maturity index,” analyzing a nation’s level of health information exchange among users along with their level of health IT adoption among specialists and primary care doctors. Adoption was defined across four HIT functions: administrative tools, electronic patient notes, electronic alerts/reminders, and computerized decision support systems. Health information exchange was defined across seven connectivity dimensions: electronic communications, e-notifications, e-referrals, e-access to clinical data about patients who see a different provider, e-prescribing, and
The digital future in focus, according to comScore: health grew fastest in 2011
comScore has issued its annual report on the state of the American digital consumer in U.S. Digital Future in Focus 2012 and the topline is that mobile and Facebook are redefining communication in both the digital and physical worlds. This disruptive phenomenon has transformational implications for health and health care. comScore’s macro observations are that: – Social networking, and especially Facebook, is capturing a growing proportion of online users’ time, thus redefining how brands and organizations must interact with customers offline and on-. – Google remains the search leader but Bing has grown, surpassing Yahoo! as #2 in 2011. –
On the road to retail health: healthcareDIY and primary care, everywhere
At the ConvUrgent Care Symposium in Orlando, attendees from the worlds of clinics, ambulatory care, hospital beds, pharmacies, medical devices, life sciences, health information, health IT, health plans, academic medical centers and professional medical societies came together to share and learn about the morphing landscape of retail health. The topline message: primary care is everywhere, and based on the response to my keynote talk this morning, every stakeholder segment gets it. My mantra, courtesy of the U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin: don’t look at health in isolation, that is, where the doctor and hospital are. Health happens wherever the person
Hey, Big Spender: 1% of US health citizens consume 20% of costs
Cue up the song “Hey Big Spender” from the Broadway hit, Sweet Charity, when you read the January 2012 AHRQ report with the long-winded title, The Concentration and Persistence in the Level of Health Expenditures over Time: Estimates for the U.S. Population, 2008-2009.” The report’s headline is that 1% of the U.S. population consumed 20% of all health costs spent in the U.S. in 2008 and 2009, illustrated by the chart. These Big Health Spenders tend to be in poor or fair health, older, female, non-Hispanic whites and people with only publicly-provided health insurance. Their mean expenditure was $90,061. The top 10%
Connected Health and obesity – will mObesity be able to mitigate the epidemic?
It’s January and the #1 most popular post-New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, get fit, and live well. The signs of this are manifested in ads featuring Janet Jackson promoting Nutrisystem, Jennifer Hudson dueting with her then-and-now selves pitching Weight Watchers, as well as the new Weight Watchers for Men promotion starring Charles Barkley. But there are new signs that losing weight and getting fit are going beyond “diets” and food plans: research shows that moving around and getting exercise can help people sustain hard-earned weight loss more than just changing food intake and “dieting.” So the Apple store
Make 2012 the year of living health-fully
When I would meet up with clients and friends during the latter half of 2011, people whom I hadn’t seen for months would do a double-take when they saw me. “What have you done?” they have asked. In this first post of 2012, I will share with Health Populi readers my story of 2011 — a year of living health-fully for me. One of the blessings of my work-life is that I have access to some of the great minds in health and health care. But not until I began to personally harness their wisdom, intentionally incorporating what they’ve learned into my own life-flow and
Consumers are at the center of the business of health and wellness
The market for health and wellness has traditionally included over-the-counter medicines, gym memberships, and vitamins/minerals/supplements. In 2012, the boundaries of health/wellness are blurring beyond these line items toward preventive medical services and consumer electronics. This morphing market is discussed by Cambridge Consultants in their report on the disruptions driving The Business of Health & Wellness: Engaging consumers and making money. Cambridge correctly introduces this analysis by saying that economics, the growing prevalence of chronic diseases, an aging population, and demand consumers are shaping health/wellness, “recharacterizing” the market as one driven by “life events.” Cambridge sees that health consumers are changing their spending
UK finds telehealth reduces mortality by 45%; telehealth’s tipping point in 2012
As we approach 2012, we health prognosticators like to forecast what we’ll likely see in 2012. One of the for-certain trends will be the uptake of telehealth programs, which will be publicly, privately, and jointly-funded. The business case is clear for telehealth, both in the U.S. and globally. Jon Linkous, CEO of the American Telemedicine Association, told the mHealth Summit last week that, the “shift in the way healthcare is paid will put providers in driver’s seat when it comes to choosing the best way to deliver healthcare and whether or not to use telemedicine.” The forces are converging for telehealth
Value and values will drive the adoption of mobile health
This week’s mHealth Summit in Washington, DC, features scores of presentations, posters, and corporate announcements demonstrating the typical chaos of emerging technology markets: the Big Question at this stage on S-curves for new tech is always, “what’s the timing of the pace of change,” or for you mathematically-inclined readers, “what’s the slope of the mHealth adoption curve?” Before we address that question, let’s be transparent about the fact that there are several definitions of just what ‘mHealth’ is: purists may conceive it as covering only those health tools and applications that ‘go’ mobile–that is, that are deployed via mobile phones and
Designing health technology for people at home
The Internet, broadband, mobile health platforms, and consumers’ demand for more convenient health care services are fueling the development and adoption of health technologies in peoples’ homes. However, designing products that people will delight in using is based on incorporating human factors in design. Human factors are part of engineering science and account for the people using the device, the equipment being used, and the tasks the people are undertaking. The model illustrates these three interactive factors, along with the outer rings of environments: health policy, community, social, and physical. Getting these aspects right in the design of health technologies meant for
Consumer electronics comes to health care — but don’t overestimate consumer demand just yet
More people with higher levels of concern about their health feel they are in good health, see their doctors regularly for check-ups, take prescription meds “exactly” as instructed, feel they eat right, and prefer lifestyle changes over using medicines. And 40% of these highly-health-concerned people have also used a health technology in the past year. At the other end of the spectrum are people with low levels of health concern: few see the doctor regularly for check-ups, less than one-half take their meds as prescribed by their doctors, only 31% feel they eat right, and only 36% feel they’re in
Tech fast forward families are ripe for health care self-care
Kids lead their parents in the adoption of digital technologies; that’s why the youngers are called Digital Natives. An intriguing survey of adults’ use of technologies finds that those who do so like “childlike play,” and at the same time, for kids, make them feel more grown up. The trend, Ogilvy says, is blurring generational lines: market to adults as kids, and kids as adults. This convergence is leading families to become more “units” — parents and kids increasingly on the same page in purchase decisions. In Tech Fast Forward: Plug in to see the brighter side of life, from
The economy’s impact on personal health: shopping and social
The recessionary, sluggish U.S. economy has had an impact on Americans’ mental and physical health. The least healthy citizens have experienced a disproportionately hard hit on their health and health care. But necessity being the mother of invention, some people are re-inventing their personal workflows in health care — and many of these tactics may well benefit their health in the long run. The Economy and Health: 10 Observations is the analysis from Euro RSCG‘s survey of U.S. adults’ views on their personal health in light of the continued economic downturn. The first chart shows the economy’s impact on the overall mood of
More U.S. health citizens embrace digital personal health information: the topline of Manhattan Research’s Cybercitizen Health survey
“56 million U.S. Consumers Access Medical Information from Electronic Health Records,” asserted Manhattan Research’s press release of October 12, 2011. This statistic, fresh out of the firm’s 2011 Cybercitizen Health survey, is among several stunning numbers that demonstrate a growing trend: U.S. health citizens’ embrace of their personal health information in digital formats, via electronic channels. To kick the tires on the survey a bit, I spent time on the phone with the “3 M’s” of Manhattan Research — Meredith Ressi, President; Monique Levy, VP of Research; and, Maureen Malloy, Senior Healthcare Analyst who can recite the survey data backwards and forwards. Together,
Prospecting for gold: the role of data in the health economy
3 in 4 of the Fortune 50 companies are part of the U.S. health economy in some way. Only 1 in 3 of these is in traditional health industries like pharmaceutical and life science companies, insurance, and businesses in the Old School Health Care value chain. 2 in 3 of the Fortune 50 companies involved in health are in new-new segments. In their report, The New Gold Rush, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) identifies four roles for “prospectors” in the new health economy which will represent 20% of the GDP by 2019: Fixers Connectors Retailers, and Implementers. These are the disruptive roles that will
Telemedicine is an enabler of health reform
Globally, in developed economies, the challenges of increasing health care costs, access to quality health care, aging citizens and the supply of clinicians are universal. CSC says telemedicine can address these challenges as part of reforming health care delivery and financing throughout the world. In Telemedicine: An Essential Technology for Reformed Healthcare, CSC sees telemedicine as an enabler for health reforms’ goals the world over. In the U.S., telemedicine is explicitly mentioned in the Affordable Care Act. In April 2011, the Federal Register included language about health financing reform that said, “The ACO shall define processes to promote evidence-based medicine and patient engagement, report
Doctors using tablet-based EMRs like portability, productivity and patient communication
The past year has seen a huge jump in the number of hours that physicians spend online; at the margin, the increase is due to physicians’ use of online via mobile platforms. Meredith Abreu-Ressi, President of Manhattan Research, shared her insights into the firm’s study, Taking the Pulse (v. 11), with me today. The top-line finding of the annual survey is that health professionals have quickly adopted mobile platforms in health — with special attention paid to Apple products, the iPhone and the iPad. Manhattan Research has tracked physicians’ use of online health resources for over a decade. They’ve found
A long-term care crisis is brewing around the world: who will provide and pay for LTC?
By 2050, the demand for long-term care (LTC) workers will more than double in the developed world, from Norway and New Zealand to Japan and the U.S. Aging populations with growing incidence of disabilities, looser family ties, and more women in the labor force are driving this reality. This is a multi-dimensional problem which requires looking beyond the issue of the simple aging demographic. Help Wanted? is an apt title for the report from The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), subtitled, “providing and paying for long-term care.” The report details the complex forces exacerbating the LTC carer shortage, focusing
Health care where we live, play, work and pray: how Ford & Toyota’s mhealth pilots fit into Whole Health
In an interview in March 2011 with the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Regina Benjamin, the U.S. Surgeon General, said, “We can’t look at health in isolation. It’s not just in the doctor’s office. It’s got to be where we live, we work, we play, we pray. If you have a healthy community, you have a healthy individual.” Ford’s announcement last week that the automaker would team up with WellDoc to incorporate mobile health sensors into the company’s SYNC connectivity system follows Toyota’s mhealth concept, the RiN, launched in 2007. Among various applications envisioned at this preliminary stage: Glucose monitors, from Medtronic, will
Brand “Health:” where is it in the Top 100 most valuable brands?
Apple has supplanted Google as the world’s #1 most valuable brand, worth more brand-wise than Microsoft and Coca-Cola combined (#5 and #6). the other most valuable global brands are IBM, McDonalds, AT&T, Marlboro, China Mobile, and GE. Technology brands have significantly grown in value with consumers allocating more personal disposable income to products like tablet computers and smartphones, even in the face of recessionary economics the world over. Technology companies are now 1/3 of the top 100 brands. Millward Brown, the brand consultancy that is part of WPP, the global communications firm, has conducted the BrandZ top 100 most valuable
The new health reform is online and mobile; talking at J. Boye 2011 in Philadelphia
With non-communicable diseases (NCDs) killing two-third’s of the Earth’s residents — not malaria, HIV or other infectious diseases — the World Health Organization calls lifestyle-borne chronic conditions a “slow-motion catastrophe.” The solution for addressing this global challenge isn’t just about deploying more doctors and medical technology in hospitals and bricks-and-mortar institutions. The real health reform is about infrastructure-independent care and feeding that bolsters peoples’ health where they live, work, play and pray, as characterized by the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin in the Los Angeles Times on March 13, 2011. Today I’ll be participating on the eHealth track at the J.
Verizon expanding into remote and mobile health for senior living – what it means for healthy aging and medical costs
The announcement that Verizon, the telecommunications giant, will partner with Healthsense, a home health monitoring company, indicates that the adoption of telehealth services beyond project pilots and government-funds required to bolster the market is real. Verizon is upgrading the FiOS network, which it will extend to senior housing and assisted living communities that would use Healthsense’s suite of remote health monitoring, personal emergency response systems, wireless nurse call, and wellness monitoring products. The broadband FiOS network is upgradeable to 100 megabits per second, which would enable the bandwidth required by home health technologies that require high performance and reliable network connectivity. These
Patients’ health activation leads to better outcomes, but providers aren’t as engaging as they should be
Patient engagement improves health outcomes. But deploying patient empowerment and engagement tools involve many challenges, among them: privacy, security, integrity of medical records, liability, and payment. These have prevented health providers – doctors and hospitals – from adopting strategies to more closely engage patients. From the patient’s perspective, though, many patients have project-managed their own approaches to engagement with online and mobile health tools, such as participating in peer-to-peer health social networks, downloading and using mobile health apps, and monitoring calories, weight and sleep through devices like FitBit, Zeo, and the Withings scale. The Institute for Health Technology Transformation (iHT2) published the
Are health innovation and cost-reduction mutually exclusive? Insights from West Wireless’s Health Care Innovation Day DC
Representatives from eight U.S. Federal government agencies, including the FDA and Veterans Administration, among others; health financiers (VCs, angels); health tech start-ups; providers, life science companies, and analysts, attended the Health Care Innovation Day DC sponsored by West Wireless Health Institute on April 28, 2011. The meeting had the tagline, A Discussion with the FDA, setting the stage for a day-long consideration of the role of regulation vis-a-vis health innovation. The $2.5+ trillion question (annual spending on health care in the U.S.) is: can innovation drive making health care “cheaper?” This was the underlying theme of the panel on which I sat
Bye-bye, Ward & June Cleaver; Hello, multi-cultural, digital-happy family
“Ward and June Cleaver have left the building,” observe analysts at Nielsen. “The white, two-parent, ‘Leave it to Beaver’ family unit of the 1950s has evolved into a multi-layered, multi-cultural construct dominated by older, childless households,” starts a report from The Nielsen Company, The New Digital American Family. Whatever ethnic flavor this Digital Family may represent, there’s one equalizer across all of them: the smartphone, which is owned by households across cultures and income levels. First, the socio-demographics paint a picture of increasingly multi-cultural households. Recent immigrants to the U.S. accounted for 90% of population growth from 2000-2010, over-indexing for Hispanic and
While BlackBerry will hold largest share of health market, iPhone and Android adoption will grow in next 2 years
Nearly 1 in two mobile phone platforms in hospitals had a BlackBerry brand in the fourth quarter of 2010. However, within 2 years, more mobile phones will be labeled iPhone or Android, eroding the Blackberry share of the market as health workers abandon their cell phones for smartphones and switch away from their BlackBerry devices. Still, 1 in 3 hospital workers will be using a BlackBerry in 2013, as the chart illustrates. Amcom Software conducted a survey of 300 hospitals and health systems in October 2010 to assess their views on smartphones and the emergence of tablets in hospital settings. While paging (job-related alerts)
The intent-behavior gap is what stands between the doctor and optimal health outcomes
The environmental landscape for pharmaceutical manufacturers and retail pharmacies is marked with landmines, yield signs, and cautionary wild cards: health reform, supply chain dynamics, specialty drug pricing, pharmacogenomics, and the high burden of chronic disease among them. But the crux of the challenge for achieving optimal outcomes has less to do with these factors than it does with consumer behavior: specifically, the chasm between what people/health consumers say they want versus what people actually do. Express Scripts calls this “The Intent-Behavior Gap,” and it’s the theme of the company’s 2010 Drug Trend Report, Complex Challenges, New Solutions. The cost of sub-optimal pharmacy behaviors are huge: in 2010, pharmacy-related waste
Being Digital Doesn’t Always Mean You’re Young, Demographically Speaking
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
Health, the new green: Toyota’s RiN
While health has blurred into a score of consumer product categories, here’s the latest crossover from Toyota: the first car to engineer health and wellness into its design, recently unveiled at the 2007 Tokyo Auto Show. The Toyota RiN is a concept car based on comfort and what Toyota’s PR calls, “serene, healthy living.” The RiN was one of 21 cars Toyota showed under the theme, “Harmonious Drive — a New Tomorrow for People and the Planet.” This isn’t high performance; it’s high-minded health by way of Dr. Weil, wrapped up in a golf cart-cum-Popemobile. Toyota’s press says the car’s