The Evidence for Gratitude and Health, 2024 Giving Thanks
In our home, we’re feeling very grateful for our healthy lives and work-flows right now, being very mindful about seeing blessings around me and within me…. So I’m sharing the love (or “scaling the love” as I recently coined at OSF’s Digital Health Symposium!) to honor American Thanksgiving 2024 here in Health Populi pointing out several sources highlighting the evidence on gratitude and health….underpinned with love, the ultimate driver of health and well-being. Leslie Sarasin, President and CEO of FMI, the Food Industry Association, reminds us that, “Our immigrant ancestors, the pilgrim settlers, worked hard
3 in 4 U.S. Patients Say the Healthcare System is Broken — But Technology Can Help
Patients “yearn” for personalized services and relationships in health care — optimistic that technology can help deliver on that hope — we learn in Healthcare’s Future: Balancing Progress and Perception, a health consumer survey report from Lavidge. Lavidge, a communications/PR/marketing consultancy, polled U.S. patients’ attitudes about health care and technology in June 2024, publishing the report earlier this month. Start with over-arching finding that, “Three out of four patients believe the U.S. healthcare system is broken and there is a strong sense of distrust,” Lavidge asserts right at the top of
How Voting Plays Into Health, Health Equity, and Community Well-Being
“Voter registration in hospitals is the new frontier in health care.” That’s the headline in a WBUR story last week detailing the efforts of health care professionals in “amplifying” their patients’ voices inside and outside of the hospital walls by advocating for their health citizenship — through voter registration and public health policy advocacy. I’m a long-time evangelist for health citizenship and the role that a person’s engagement in the civic commons plays in one’s own health, the health of their communities and of the nation as a whole. I’m not alone
Americans Who Perceive Negative Medical Treatment Due to Weight, Insurance Status, and Identity Metrics – YouGov Insights
Millions of Americans believe they have been treated negatively by a physician due to their weight, insurance status, physical appearance and/or state of mental health, according to a YouGov poll published August 6, 2024. To gauge U.S. health citizens’ perceptions of fair and unfair treatment in the health care system, YouGov conducted this research among 1,200 U.S. adults 18 and over online in late June 2024. The first bar chart arrays various identity characteristics describing patients: we see that weight is by far the top characteristic putting the person at-risk for being
How to Get Better Care to More People? Address Burnout, Bridge Insights with AI, Embed Sustainability – the Philips Future Health Index 2024
Health care access is a challenge in rural and urban areas, cities and suburbs, and across more demographic groups than you might realize, as we see wait times grow for appointments, primary care shortages, and delays in screening plaguing health systems around the world. In the Future Health Index 2024, Philips’ latest annual report presents a profile of the state of health care focused on how to provide better care for more people. For the report, Philips surveyed a total of 2,800 healthcare leaders consisting of 200 respondents in 14 countries: Australia, Brazil, China,
Is There an Easy-Button for AI In Healthcare Team Well-Being? Exploring a New PC with Embedded AI
“The greatest opportunity offered by AI is not reducing errors or workloads, or even curing cancer: it is the opportunity to restore the precious and time-honored connection and trust,” Dr. Eric Topol wrote in his 2019 book, Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. In the five years since Dr. Topol looked for AI to bolster the human-touch in health care, we’ve lived, worked, and muddled our way through the COVID-19 pandemic and witnessed the growing epidemic of burnout among clinicians, the front-line of medical care. I recalled Dr. Topol’s assertion on AI’s promise for humanizing health
Health Information Security – My Interview with Richard Kaufmann, CISO of Amedisys – Part 1: Origin Stories, the Security Ecosystem, and the Start Line
“If data is everywhere, how do you protect it?” This thought has been on my mind well before the Change Healthcare hacks (that’s plural) with which U.S. health care stakeholders are still dealing as this post goes live on the Health Populi blog. It’s a question posed to me in conversation with Richard Kaufmann, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) with Amedisys. I’m grateful for the opportunity to explore in depth the many facets of cybersecurity in health care with Richard – the growing threats, the impact on providers, the state of technology and innovations to manage risks, and his evolving
Safety in Health Care Ties Closely to Workforce Well-Being – Updates from Press Ganey and ECRI
“First, do no harm” is a key M.O. in health care. The phrase “patient safety” summons up a list of common sources such as medication errors, surgical errors, health care-associated infections, diagnostic errors, among other adverse events and harms people experience in the course of receiving health care. While safety outcomes and health care organizations’ “safety cultures” are improving, there is evidence in the U.S. that people — both patients and the health care workforce — feel less safe, discussed in Safety in Healthcare 2024 from Press Ganey. “Safety is the foundation of healthcare. It anchors all experiences — for patients
Nurses Continue to Rank Highest in Ethics and Honesty for Professions in the US — But Peoples’ Opinions for All Jobs, Including Nursing, Have Eroded in Gallup’s Latest Poll
Ratings of honesty and ethics in professions have fallen down in the U.S., we find the Gallup Poll’s annual assessment of rankings for occupations that touch peoples’ lives in America. Each year for over a decade, nurses have ranked highest in this survey, representing the most-trusted profession working in America. However, even nurses’ ethic-equity has dropped in the hearts and minds of Americans over the past four years, falling 7 percentage points from a high of 85% of citizens ranking nurses at the greatest level of honesty and ethics to
I was invited to be a Judge for the upcoming CES 2025 Innovation Awards in the category of digital health and connected fitness. So grateful to be part of this annual effort to identify the best in consumer-facing health solutions for self-care, condition management, and family well-being. Thank you, CTA!
Thank you Team Roche for inviting me to brainstorm patients as health citizens, consumers, payers, and voters in the Healthcare Transformers series.
For the past 15 years, the annual CES conference in Las Vegas has been my go-to meeting for updating my research and network in digital health and consumer-facing electronics that people find meaningful for their well-being, families, and home lives. I'll be back in Vegas in January for a full week of Media Days, one-on-one meetings, and speaking about my perspectives on health consumers.