My ABCovid-19 Journal – Day 5 of 5, Letters “U” through “Z”
We’ve had a lovely week on Seneca Lake, re-setting our physical, mental, and emotional clocks in the #KahnCave. It’s been blissful. I’ve enjoyed receiving feedback on the past four days of ABCovid-19 journal shares on my LinkedIn page and Twitter feed @HealthyThinker. My #arttherapy is yours for the sharing and taking. We are all, truly, on this pandemic journey together. That’s public health, for you. Today, I bring you the fifth and last day of sharing my COVID-19 alphabet with you: the letters “U” through “Z.” Read on, and please let me know after seeing all 26 alpha’s which page(s)
My ABCovid-19 Journal – Day 4 of 5, Letters “P” through “T”
While I’m on holiday this week, restoring and re-setting, I’ve been sharing pages from my ABCovid-19 Journal with readers of Health Populi. I created this journal during the early phase of the pandemic in the U.S., as a form of art therapy, creative outlet, and learning. Today is Day 4 of sharing: we consider the letters “P” through “T,” and what I saw in the early coronavirus era. P is for pandemic This “P” was self-evidence in our collective early COVID-19 lexicon. The “P” word was uttered by the Secretary General of the World Health Organization on March 11, confirming
Pharmacies Grow for Primary Care On-Ramps – And J.D. Power Says Consumers Like That
The use of health and wellness services delivered in retail pharmacies is growing, and health consumers’ satisfaction increases with use. That’s the headline for J.D. Power’s 2020 U.S. Pharmacy Study. This is the 12th year of J.D. Power’s U.S. Pharmacy Study, this year based on a survey of 13,378 pharmacy customers who filled a prescription between June 2019 and February 2020. The study assessed four retail prescription drug channels for consumers: brick and mortar chain drug stores, brick and mortar mass merchandisers, supermarket pharmacies, and mail order. The top ranked brands were: For brick and mortar chains, Good Neighbor Pharmacy
We Are All About Hygiene, Groceries, and Personal Care in the Midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic
Pass me the Clorox…tip the UPS driver…love thy grocer. These are our daily life-flows in the Age of COVID-19. Our basic needs are reflected in the new 2020 Axios-Harris Poll, released today. For the past several years, I’ve covered the Harris Poll of companies’ reputation rankings here in Health Populi. Last year, Wegmans, the grocer, ranked #1; Amazon, #2. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. consumers’ basic needs are emerging as health and hygiene, food, and technology, based on the new Axios-Harris Poll on the top 100 companies. This year’s study was conducted in four waves, with the
News from the Consumer Technology Association and Withings Further Demonstrates Private Sector’s Role in the Pandemic and Public Health
This week, announcements from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and Withings further bolster the case for the private sector bolstering public health in this pandemic…and future ones to come beyond the Age of the Coronavirus. Since the pandemic emerged, CTA has been reaching out to members and stakeholders to be a useful resource for the consumer electronics industry and its customers. Digital health resources have been an especially useful touch point for CTA’s constituents (including me, as a member who is active with the Association). On 27th July, CTA announced the Association’s launch of the Public Health Tech Initiative. In
How Retailers Are the New Public Health Purveyors
CVS stopped selling tobacco on October 1, 2014. In that moment, a Fortune 100 company stepped an entire foot, and not just a toe, into public health waters. [I covered that event with joy here in Health Populi as soon as it was announced months earlier on February 14th]. The company re-branded from CVS/pharmacy to CVS Health. That was a watershed moment in U.S. public health history, a wave that has continued to grow over the past six years to this moment, in the thick of the coronavirus pandemic. This week’s news that Best Buy will require shoppers to wear
From Dr. Fauci to Peloton, Healthcare and Wellness Baked Into Ad Age’s Top 20 Brands for 2020
Advertising Age announced their list of the top 20 brands in 2020 this week. Ad Age’s lens on these was heavily tinted by consumers’ lives coping with the coronavirus pandemic: “The coronavirus has brought new attention to typically boring, decades-old consumer staples, while hastening the rise of digital newcomers that were only just beginning to gain traction pre-pandemic,” Ad Age explains in the introduction to the list of the selected brands. As the editors of the MadMen-and-Women’s most influential industry publication, they explain, “Ad Age chronicles 20 brands that are having a moment.” This moment to them as well as
Americans Across Political Party Worry About Prescription Drug Prices – Especially to Deal with COVID-19
Nine in ten Americans is concerned about the price of prescription drugs in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Gallup and West Health found in their survey on the cost of healthcare, published today. A majority of people across political party share this concern: overall, 88% of U.S. adults are concerned about rising drug prices in response to COVID19, split across party ID with: 94% of Democrats, 86% of Independents, and 84% of Republicans. By demographics, more women than men are concerned about rising costs for the three health care spending categories the survey studied: drug prices, insurance premiums, and
Economic Anxieties Rise, Medical and Vacation Plans Delayed: the COVID-19 Consumer in June 2020
Some 6 in 10 people in the U.S. have been financially impacted by COVID-19. Those most negatively affected by the pandemic tend to be younger, Gen Z age group and African-American, 63% of whom felt financial pressure directly due from the virus and the national economic lockdown. By late May 2020, 34% of black Americans had lost their jobs compared with 21% in late April, compared with 18% of white consumers, reported in The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Financial Impact on U.S. Consumers, survey research from TransUnion. This post describes data from TransUnion’s Wave 9 report, which polled 2,086 U.S. adults 18
An Airline, A Hospital and A Disinfectant Brand Walk Into A(n Airport) Bar–the New Health/Care Collaboration in the Age of COVID
You’ve heard the one about three characters walking into a bar. A new collaboration between United Airlines, Cleveland Clinic and Clorox reminded me of that scenario, and that in the age of the coronavirus pandemic, collaboration can bolster our health. In the era of COVID-19, people — consumers. patients managing chronic conditions, and caregivers (whether for younger or older loved ones) — are concerned about contracting the virus. In U.S. states where governors mandated shelter-at-home for much of the first half of 2020, millions of people have become conditioned to physically distance, wear face coverings, and #StayHome. In particular, workers
In the Pandemic, We’re All About Food
The coronavirus pandemic has pushed people down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs toward our basic hunting-and-gathering survival mode: shopping for hygiene products for home and personal care, seeking out masks (both functional and fashionable), and building out our pandemic pantries with shelf-stable foods. In addition to the pure physiological need of food for survival, “Consumers have a greater focus on health and immunity. They also have a desire to exhibit more control,” Charlie Arnot, CEO of The Center for Food Integrity, said on the Professional Dairy Producers’ Dairy Signal webinar on consumer food trends during COVID-19. We’ve become a nation of
Telehealth Is Just Healthcare Now – One Post-COVID Certainty, Three Reports
As we wrestle with just “what” health care will look like “after COVID,” there’s one certainty that we can embrace in our health planning and forecasting efforts: that’s the persistence of telehealth and virtual care into health care work- and life-flows, for clinicians and consumers alike and aligned. There’s been a flurry of research into this question since the hockey-stick growth of telemedicine visits were evident in March 2020, just days after the World Health Organization uttered the “P-word:” pandemic. Three recent reports (among many others!) bolster the business and clinical cases for telehealth in America in terms of: A
The Hair Economy in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Control, Wellness, and Self-Care
The barbershop and beauty salon are important community touch points for health, wellness, and social connection in so many peoples’ lives. In my book, HealthConsuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen, I feature the black barbershop to introduce a chapter on “The New Retail Health.” In the COVID-19 pandemic, how we’re dealing with hair is a metaphor for personal control, for political statements, for mental health, and for overall well-being. Check out Geoff Coates’ (known as Sadochicken, from Vancouver) take on “how quarantine hairdos are lookin’,” here. Can you see yourself? I can (it’s the “Corona Bangs” style for me,
Trust My Doctor and Fear the Office: The Telehealth Opportunity in and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic
Doctors maintain their top status as U.S. patients’ most-trusted source of coronavirus information. However, as patients continue to be concerned about exposure to COVID-19, 3 in 5 are concerned about being at-risk to the virus in their doctor’s office, according to research from the Alliance of Community Health Plans (ACHP) and AMCP, the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy. Patients’ concerns of COVID-19 risks have led them to self-ration care in the following ways: 41% have delayed health care services 42% felt uncomfortable going to a hospital for any medical treatment 45% felt uncomfortable using an urgent care or walk-in clinic,
Sex, Drugs, Mental Health and COVID Tests – A DTC Reboot for Health?
This week, Hims & Hers announced they would be a new consumer-facing retail channel for coronavirus testing. You can order the test here for $150 cash out-of-pocket. The packaging states that this is a saliva test, “to detect current presence of COVID-19.” The fine print on the Hims website states: This test has been authorized by the FDA under an Emergency Use Authorization for use by authorized laboratories. This test has not been FDA cleared or approved. This test has been authorized only for the detection of nucleic acid from SARS-CoV-2, not for any other viruses or pathogens. This test
Consumers Focus on Basic Needs in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Is Self-Care a New Normal?
Personal health, food and medicine, safety and financial security are consumers’ top priorities as of April 2020, learned in consumer research analyzed in How COVID-19 will permanently change consumer behavior from Accenture. Both health and economic concerns plague consumers around the world as people “strive to adapt to a new normal,” Accenture reports. “Fear is running high as individuals contemplate what this crisis means for them…for their families and friends, and the society at large,” the report sets the table on the evolving behaviors of consumers in the pandemic. On an individual, personal level, two-thirds of people are fearful for
Drive-Thru Health, In and After the Pandemic
Physical distancing and sheltering-in-place at home are becoming norms in our pandemic life-flows. We’ve seen the advent of drive-through and drive-up weddings, wakes, and high school graduation rites. And when food, hygiene supplies, and medical care can’t be delivered by Amazon or Instacart via FedEx, UPS, or the U.S. Postal Service, there’s always the automobile — which, in the U.S., is also part of COVID-19 consumers’ coping mechanisms for hunting-and-gathering the stuff of survival. The automobile has played a particularly unique role in American consumer culture, especially in the suburbanization of the country after World War II. THINK: American Graffiti
How COVID-19 is Hurting Americans’ Home Economics in 2020
Beyond the physical and clinical aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic are financial hits that people are taking in the shutdown of large parts of the U.S. economy, impacting jobs, wages, and health insurance rolls. Some 1 in 2 people in the U.S. who have had their income impacted by the coronavirus have either fallen behind in paying off credit card debt or other bills, had problems paying for utilities, have lagged in paying for housing (rent or mortgage), been challenged paying for food, or other out-of-pocket costs. We learn about these fiscal hits from COVID-10 from the latest Health Tracking Poll
Healthy Thinking: Inside the Mind of the COVID-19 Consumer
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
The Grocery Store as Social, Health — and Sickness — Destination
On Monday, 6th April 2020, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, has determined that the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are essential workers in our age of the coronavirus pandemic. The PM has posted an Easter egg coloring project on her Facebook page to support children (and people like me who like to color) in the #StayHome era. In the U.S., the day before on Sunday 7th April, Dr. Deborah Birx advised Americans that, “The next two weeks are extraordinarily important. This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the
The Coronavirus Impact on American Life, Part 2 – Our Mental Health
As the coronavirus pandemic’s curve of infected Americans ratchets up in the U.S., people are seeking comfort from listening to Dolly Parton’s bedtime stories, crushing on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s science-wrapped-with-empathy, and streaming the Tiger King on Netflix. These and other self-care tactics are taking hold in the U.S. as most people are “social distancing” or sheltering in place, based on numbers from the early April 2020 Kaiser Family Foundation health tracking poll on the impact of the coronavirus on American life. While the collective practice of #StayHome to #FlattenTheCurve is the best-practice advice from the science leaders at CDC, the NIAID
Telehealth and COVID-19 in the U.S.: A Conversation with Ann Mond Johnson, ATA CEO
Will the coronavirus inspire greater adoption of telehealth in the U.S.? Let’s travel to Shanghai, China where, “the covid-19 epidemic has brought millions of new patients online. They are likely to stay there,” asserts “The smartphone will see you now,” an article in the March 7th 2020 issue of The Economist. The article returns to the advent of the SARS epidemic in China in 2003, which ushered in a series of events: people stayed home, and Chinese social media and e-commerce proliferated. The coronavirus spawned another kind of gift to China and the nation’s health citizens: telemedicine, the essay explains. A
Waking Up a Health Consumer in the COVID-19 Era
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
Why CTA’s Shepherding AI Is Important for Re-Imagining Healthcare
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), collaborating with industry stakeholders, has ushered in a standard for artificial intelligence in health care. CTA is the membership organization for companies that innovate, manufacture and market consumer-facing tech like big-screen TVs, slick new autos, video games and voice assistants. So what’s an organization like CTA doing with AI and health care? Let me connect the dots. Check out this graphic taken from my book, HealthConsuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen. This shows the ten categories of tech I revisit each year at CES, CTA’s annual mega-conference of new-new things in consumer electronics
Outpatient is the New Inpatient – The Future of Hospitals in America
Outpatient revenue is crossing the curve of inpatient income. This is the new reality for U.S. hospitals and why I’ve titled this post, “outpatient is the new inpatient,” a future paradigm for U.S. hospitals This realization is informed by data in a new report from Deloitte, Where have the many hospital inpatient gone? The line chart illustrates Deloitte’s top and bottom line: “The shift toward outpatient is happening and will likely have a tremendous impact on operations, business models, staffing, and capital. Health systems should prepare for the future today and start thinking not only about how to manage their
Tools for Paying Medical Bills Don’t Help Health Consumers Manage Their Financial Health
There’s a gap between the supply of digital health tools that hospitals and health systems offer patients, and what patients-as-consumers need for overall health and wellbeing. This chasm is illustrated in The future of the digital patient experience, the latest report from HIMSS and the Center for Connected Medicine (CCM). The big gap in supply to patients vs. demand by health consumers is highlighted by what the arrow in the chart below points to: managing payments and paying bills. Nowhere in the top 10 most commonly provided digital tools is one for price transparency, cost comparing or cost estimating. In the
The Ill Health of Rural Hospitals in Four Charts
There are 1,844 rural hospitals operating in the U.S. That number is down by 19 in the 2019 calendar year, the worst year of rural hospital closings seen in the past decade. That hockey-stick growth of closures is shown in the first chart, where 34 rural hospitals shut down in the past 2 years. Rural U.S. hospitals are in poor fiscal health. “The accelerated rate at which rural hospitals are closing continues to unsettle the rural healthcare community and demands a more nuanced investigation into rural hospital performance,” threatening the stability of the rural health safety net, according to the
What Health Plans, Hospitals and Health Systems Can Learn from CES 2020
At this year’s CES — that’s the annual meta-meet-up of tech-loving folks from around the world who meet in Las Vegas to see the latest in all forms of consumer electronics and technology, from smart refrigerators and sexy sleek cars to videogames and personal emergency systems — there was a lot for the health care industry to soak up. I explain what was not only hot, but impactful, for health care providers and plans in the Medecision Liberation Blog published today. This year’s #CES2020 wasn’t as much about the shiny new things in the Internet of Things as it was
Health@Retail Update: Kroger and Hy-Vee Morph Grocery into Health, Walmart’s Health Center, CVS/housing and More
With our HealthConsuming “health is everywhere” ethos, this post updates some of the most impactful recent retail health developments shaping consumers’ health/care touchpoints beyond hospitals, physicians, and health plans. For inspiration and context, I’ll kick off with Roz Chast’s latest New Yorker cartoon from the February 3rd 2020 issue — Strangers in the Night, taking place in a Duane Reade pharmacy. Roz really channels the scene in front of the pharmacy counter, from Q-tips to vitamins and tea. And it’s hummable to the tune of, well, Strangers in the Night. Check out the 24-hour pharmacist under the pick-up sign. Now,
What’s Causing Fewer Primary Care Visits in the US?
Americans who have commercial health insurance (say, through an employer or union) are rarely thought to face barriers to receiving health care — in particular, primary care, that front line provider and on-ramp to the health care system. But in a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, commercially-insured adults were found to have visited primary care providers (PCPs) less often, and 1 in 2 had no PCP visits in one year. In Declining Use of Primary Care Among Commercially Insured Adults in the United States, 2008-2016, the researchers analyzed data from a national sample of adult health
Consumers Seek Benefits From Food, a Personal Social Determinant of Health
As consumers in the U.S. wrestle with accessing and paying for medical benefits, there’s another sort of health benefit people increasingly understand, embrace, and consume: food-as-medicine. More people are taking on the role of health consumers as they spend more out-of-pocket on medical care and insurance, and seeking food to bolster their health is part of this behavior change. One in four Americans seek health benefits from food, those who don’t still seek the opportunity to use food for weight loss goals, heart health and energy boosting, according to the 2019 Food & Health Survey from the International Food Information
Nurses Continue to Reign #1 in Honesty and Ethics; Healthcare Pro’s 4 of Top 5 in Annual Gallup Poll
The topline of this year’s annual Gallup Poll into honesty and ethics of professions finds nurses sustaining their reign as the top trusted profession in America. But it’s also important to point out that four of the top five most ethical professions are people working on the front lines of health care: doctors (#3), pharmacists (#4) and dentists (#5). Engineers rank second this year after nurses, edging ahead of doctors and pharmacists who typically have ranked 2nd and 3rd each year in the past decade. One of these years, pharmacists’ reputation fell as the profession was associated with being a
The Heart of Health at CES 2020 – Evidence & Innovation Bridge Consumers and Doctors
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
Out-of-Pocket and Prescription Drug Costs – Connecting Digital Health Dots at CES 2020
The top two health care concerns facing Americans are out-of-pocket costs and prescriptions drug costs, according to a poll published today in Morning Consult. Apropos to my title of this post, the survey was sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center, whose mission is to promote, cross-party affiliations, “health, security and opportunity for all Americans.” Health care is the top issue driving voters’ choices in the 2020 elections for most Americans. The economy follows second with 44% of voters, then immigration with 33% of Americans keen on the issue. For overall healthcare reform, the plurality of Americans prefer improving the current system
The Internet of Teeth – The Growth of Oral Health at CES 2020
The presence of health and medicine is growing at CES, the annual conference of all-things-tech for consumers. At this week’s Show in Las Vegas, we see that the Internet of Healthy Things (a phrase coined by Dr. Joe Kvedar) has taken hold and gone mainstream in remote health monitoring, wearable tech, and heart rate tracking which is now embedded (and expected by health-seeking consumers) in wristbands. An expanding category in the Internet of Healthy Things is oral care. Let’s call this the Internet of Teeth, yet another riff on “IoT.” Of course, oral health goes well beyond teeth and toothbrushes.
“Digital Health Is An Ecosystem of Ecosystems” – CTA’s 2020 Trends to Watch Into the Data Age
In CTA’s 2020 Consumer Tech Forecast launched yesterday at Media Day 1 at CES, Steve Koenig VP of Research, said that, “digital health is an ecosystem of ecosystems.” Health, medical and wellness trends featured large in the forecast, which brought together key trends for 5G, robotics, voice tech, AR/VR/XR, and the next iteration of IoT — which Steve said will still be called “IoT,” but in this phase will morph into the “Intelligence of Things.” That speaks to Steve’s phrase, “ecosystem of ecosystems,” because that’s not just “digital” health — that’s now the true nature of health/care, and what is
Living in Digital Healthcare Times – Kicking off #DigitalHealthCES & #CES2020
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
What HealthyThinker Is Thinking About Health at CES 2020
Next week, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) will convene CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, where over 180,000 tech-minded people from around the world will convene to kick the tires on new TVs, games, smart home devices, 5G connections, 3-D printing, drones, and to be sure, digital health innovations. At #CES2020, exhibitors in the health/care ecosystem will go well beyond wearable devices for tracking steps and heart rate. I’ll be meeting with wearable tech innovators along with consumer electronics companies and retailers. I’ve also scheduled get-togethers with pharma and life science folks, health plan people, and execs from consumer health companies.
The 2020 Social Determinants of Health: Connectivity, Art, Air and Love
Across the U.S., the health/care ecosystem warmly embraced social determinants of health as a concept in 2019. A few of the mainstreaming-of-SDoH signposts in 2019 were: Cigna studying and focusing in on loneliness as a health and wellness risk factor Humana’s Bold Goal initiative targeting Medicare Advantage enrollees CVS building out an SDOH platform, collaborating with Unite US for the effort UPMC launching a social impact program focusing on SDoH, among other projects investing in social factors that bolster public health. As I pointed out in my 2020 Health Populi trendcast, the private sector is taking on more public health
In 2020, PwC Expects Consumers to Grow DIY Healthcare Muscles As Medical Prices Increase
The new year will see a “looming tsunami” of high prices in healthcare, regulation trumping health reform, more business deals reshaping the health/care industry landscape, and patients growing do-it-yourself care muscles, according to Top health industry issues of 2020: Will digital start to show an ROI from the PwC Health Research Institute. I’ve looked forward to reviewing this annual report for the past few years, and always learn something new from PwC’s team of researchers who reach out to experts spanning the industry. In this 14th year of the publication, PwC polled executives from payers, providers, and pharma/life science organizations. Internally,
Food As Medicine: Grocery Stores Expand as Health Destinations While the Federal Government Cuts Food Stamps
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
Hospitals Suffer Decline in Consumer Satisfaction
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
Art As Medicine – WHO Weaves the Evidence for Arts’ Role in Improving Health
“What’s the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being?” asks a report from the World Health Organization‘s Europe region team (WHO-Europe). There’s a lot of proof supporting arts-as-medicine, WHO details in this paper, which synthesizes research published in over 3,000 studies. The first chart illustrates the logic model that bridges arts to health in three segments: “Components” of arts programs, including but not limited to cognitive stimulation (e.g., learning a new arts skill such as painting, drawing or journaling), social interaction (e.g., participating in theatre), physical activity (e.g., dance), and evocation of emotion (e.g., listening
Will Consumers Cross the Cost-and-Trust Chasm Between Prescription Drugs and Hospitals?
People in the U.S. rank prescription drugs, lab tests, emergency room visits, dental and vision care, preventive services, chronic disease management and mental health care as the “most essential” health care services, according to the 2019 Survey of America’s Patients conducted by The Physicians Foundation. When asked what factors contribute to rising health care costs in America, most consumers cite the cost of prescription drugs. Taken together, these two data points demonstrate the potent political import of prescription drug prices as the U.S. approaches the 2020 Presidential election. The Physicians Foundation surveyed 2,001 U.S. adults between 27 and 75 years
How a Razor Bolsters Health, Wellness and Love for Caregiving
The market for caregiving is growing and the business community has, finally, begun to pay attention. The Washington Post referred to this market as a “gold rush” to design smart shoes, custom razors and technology for the “over-65 crowd.” Caregiving in the U.S., the seminal report from AARP, estimated that 43,5 million adults in the U.S. had provided unpaid care to an adult or child in the past year, about one in five people being caregivers. Over half of caregivers are women, and are about 49 years of age on average. Caregivers spent over 24 hours a week providing care go
The Hospital CFO in the Anxiety Economy – My Talk at Cerner’s Now/Next Conference
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
The New Health/Care is Patient-Led, Retail-Enabled – The GMDC Self-Care Summit
SelfCare is health/care, particularly as patients, everyday people, take on greater responsibility for clinical decisions and paying for medical services. We’re convening today through Sunday in Indianapolis with GMDC, the Global Market Development Center and Retail Tomorrow to brainstorm the current and future prospects for SelfCare, health and wellness in the hands, hearts, and homes of consumers. To bolster the message and engage with industry stakeholders, GMDC collaborated with the Hamacher Resource Group to develop a SelfCare Roadmap, an interactive tool that provides insights into twelve conditions where consumers typically looking to DIY their health using over-the-counter medicines, supplies and
Health @ Retail – Prelude to GMDC SelfCare Summit with Updates from Hims & Hers, GoodRx, Sam’s Club and Amazon Care
“We knew millions of people weren’t getting the care they needed — they were either too embarrassed to seek help or felt stuck in a system that was confusing and intimidating. Digital health has the potential to radically change the way people approach their wellness and, since launching in 2017, we’ve outpaced even our own expectations, delivering more than 1 million Hims & Hers products to our customers. In collaboration with highly-qualified doctors and healthcare providers, we’ve built a digital health platform that is changing the way people talk about and receive the care they need.” That’s a verbatim paragraph
The Rise of Social Determinants of Health in Healthcare is Just Real Life Stuff for People, Patients, Consumers
Based on the influx of research studies and position papers on social determinants of health flowing into my email box and Google Alerts, I can say we’re past the inflection point where SDoH is embraced by hospitals, professional societies, health plans and even a couple of pioneering pharma companies. PwC published a well-researched global-reaching report this week appropriately titled, Action required: The urgency of addressing social determinants of health. The “wheel of determinants” illustrates potential partners for collaborating in communities to address SDoH factors. The collaborators include governments, health care providers, payors, life science and pharma, tech and telecomms, policy
Why Humana Joined CTA – The Pivot from “Health Insurance” to Behaving as a Health-Tech Start-Up
“Every company is a tech company,” Christopher Mimms asserted in the Wall Street Journal in December 2018. Connectivity, artificial intelligence, and automation are now competencies every company must master, Mimms explains. This ethos underpins Humana’s decision to join CTA, the Consumer Technology Association which hosts CES every January in Las Vegas. If you read this blog, you know one of the fastest-growing “aisles” at the annual conference is digital health. Humana joined up with CTA’s Health and Fitness Technology Division this month. Last year, Humana hired Heather Cox in the new post of Chief Digital Health and Analytics Officer, reporting directly
Walmart’s Growing Footprint in Healthcare and Public Health, from Guns to Mental Health and Gardens
Over the past couple of weeks, Walmart is demonstrating its growing commitment to and leadership in healthcare and public health. The company’s announcement this week of pulling products that can be used in military-style weapons from its Outdoor Sports/Shooting department is a major move for public health that is something of a watershed that will impact well beyond the company’s inventory and stock price. This announcement will continue a trend among some thoughtful business leaders, like CEO Edward Stack of Dick’s Sporting Goods, banning gun sales from the retailer’s 125 stores in March 2019, who have begun to listen to
The Pharma Industry Hits Bottom of Consumers’ Industry Rankings, and Healthcare Is Only Marginally Higher on the List
from Gallup’s 2019 survey into Americans’ Views of U.S. Business Industry Sectors. Since reaching a relative high regard in 2015, the pharma industry reputation among consumers has declined each year since to the low this year with 58% of Americans having a negative view. This was a 31 percentage point drop in reputation in one year. This is one negativity point above peoples’ low regard for the Federal government. Gallup notes that Americans are over two times more likely to rank the pharmaceutical industry negatively (58%) as positively (27%). The healthcare industry, apart from pharma, didn’t fare well this year in
Celebrating “Labor Day” Welcoming Natalist to Our Health Ecosystem
There are many definitions of the word, “labor.” Oxford Dictionary provides context for the definition as follows: To work, as in especially hard physical work To make great effort (as in, “laboring from dawn to dusk”) To have difficulty in doing something despite working hard. For this third point, Oxford offers these synonyms: “strive, struggle, endeavor, try hard, do one’s best, do all one can, go all out, fight, push, be at pains, put oneself out.” And finally, one fourth contextual point: “A labor of love.” That is indeed the perfect framing this Labor Day week for my welcome to
Health Care Providers Grow Consumer-Facing Muscles Driven by Retail & Tech-Health Competition
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
Happy National CBD Day! How CBD Fits Into the Retail Health Ecosystem
August 8 is National CBD Day. Who knew? Well, now you do, and I’m going to explain how this three-letter-acronym is rolling into the retail health landscape, opportunities, risks, and other issues I like to cover when forecasting the future of a new-new thing in health/care. “CBD” stands for cannabidiol, which is a derivative of cannabis, marijuana and hemp plants. CBD is the non-psychoactive compound derived from cannabis plants. CBD is being fast-adopted by consumers in retail and regulated shopping channels. One in seven Americans (14%) use CBD products, according to Gallup‘s new well-being research. One-third of U.S. consumers weren’t
Talking “HealthConsuming” on the MM&M Podcast
Marc Iskowitz, Executive Editor of MM&M, warmly welcomed me to the Haymarket Media soundproof studio in New York City yesterday. We’d been trying to schedule meeting up to do a live podcast since February, and we finally got our mutual acts together on 6th August 2019. Here’s a link to the 30-minute conversation, where Marc combed through the over 500 endnotes from HealthConsuming‘s appendix to explore the patient as the new health care payor, the Amazon prime-ing of people, and prospects for social determinants of health to bolster medicines “beyond the pill.” https://www.pscp.tv/MMMnews/1eaJbvgovBYJX Thanks for listening — and if you
Telehealth Awareness, Access and Adoption: Updates from J.D. Power, the ATA and FAIR Health
When you think “J.D. Power,” your mind probably imagines reviews of automotive performance, retail shopping experiences, or perhaps even health insurance plan customer service. Expanding its report-card role in the health ecosystem. J.D. Power has undertaken a survey on consumer satisfaction with 31 telehealth providers across 15 measures, which will be published in November 2019. In advance of the full report, the organization released a summary on telehealth access and satisfaction, which I’ll discuss in this post. I’ll also weave in the latest insights from the ATA 2019 State of the States report updating legislative/regulatory telemedicine activity at the U.S.
Marketing Health To Consumers in the Age of Retail Disruption
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
The Growth of Emerging Consumer Electronics Categories Adds to Digital Health Platforms
Of the $401 billion that will flow through retailers for consumer technology products, many of the fastest-emerging categories will play a role as platforms for health and medical care at home and in wearable tech. This is my tea-leaf read from reviewing the projections in the report, U.S. Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts, July 2019, from the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). [CTA is annual convener of CES, the world’s largest consumer electronics meet-up.] Along with artificial intelligence (AI) and fast 5G networking, the forecast also quantifies growth prospects for smart speakers, home robots, wireless earbuds, smartwatches. and in-vehicle technology —
Health Care and Consumers in 2030: A Profile from KPMG
A “one layered delivery network through which patients can move seamlessly as they age and their needs evolve” will be the new health care platform to meet patients’ demands by 2030, according to a forecast from KPMG’s Healthcare and Life Sciences Institute. In Healthcare 2030: The consumer at the center, the KPMG team explores the demographic shifts and market drivers that will challenge the health care industry in the current U.S. delivery and financing system. The lens on that 2030 future is a consumer-centric delivery model that KPMG believes will be a solution to dealing with a demographic divide between
On Amazon Prime Day, What Could Health Care Look Like?
Today is July 15, and my email in-box is flooded with all flavors of Amazon Prime’d stories in newsletters and product info from ecommerce sites — even those outside of Amazon from beauty retailers, electronics channels, and grocery stores. So I ask on what will probably be among the top ecommerce revenue generating days of all time: “What could health care look like when Amazon Prime’d?” I ask and answer this in my book, HealthConsuming, as chapter 3. For context, this chapter follows two that explain how patients in the U.S. have been morphing into health consumers based on how health
Prescription Drugs Are Becoming A Luxury Good in America – Join the #HCLDR Chat Tonight
“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
A Matter of Trust, Perception, Risk, and Uncertainty – The Big Issues Raised by the Acquisition of PatientsLikeMe and Other Patient Data Transactions
By Susannah Fox, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn and Lisa Suennen I’ve lived long enough to have learned The closer you get to the fire the more you get burned But that won’t happen to us Cause it’s always been a matter of trust A Matter of Trust, by Billy Joel If you’re in health care and don’t live under a rock, you have probably heard that United Health Group (UHG) has acquired PatientsLikeMe (PLM). After the announcement, there was a lot of sound and fury, some of which signified nothing, as the saying goes, and some which signified a lot.
Kroger Health Thinks Food is Medicine – Nutrition at the Grocery Store Via FMI’s Insights
In reading the July/August issue of Eating Well magazine this week, I came across this ad which I scanned for you to see yourself: “We believe in food as medicine.” Signed, Kroger Health. Here’s the introductory text in the full-page ad: “As Kroger Health, our vision is to help people live healthier lives. And now, more than ever, through our experts, innovation, and technology, we’re uniquely positioned to bring that vision to life,” the copy read. “We know food,” the text continued, as part of The Kroger Co. which is the largest grocery chain in the U.S. celebrating 135 years
IKEA Garners the Top Health & Wellness Award at Cannes Lions 2019 – the Expanding Health/Care Ecosystem
“Health is now everyone’s business,” Shaheed Peera, Executive Creative Director of Publicis LifeBrands, said this week at the 2019 Cannes Lions awards. Shaheed also led the Health & Wellness jury at Cannes Lions 2019, the mission of which is to, in the words of the award’s portal, “celebrate creativity for personal wellbeing.” The Grand Prix Lions award for Health & Wellness went to IKEA for the company’s ThisAbles campaign. ThisAbles is a project pioneered by IKEA’s team in Israel, looking to improve everyday living for people with special needs through well-designed IKEA products. IKEA collaborated with non-profit organizations to develop
The Grocery Store As Health Destination: Publix Produce for Kids and the Social Determinants of Health
Food insecurity ranks high on Americans’ greatest social health risks. In local communities, grocery stores are playing key roles in bolstering neighborhood wellness. Publix and other food chains, collaborating with the Produce for Kids program, are walking the talk on nutrition for local health citizens. Produce for Kids is associated with Feeding America, which works with local food banks and non-profits to help channel healthy food to children and families. Feeding America is a national network of over 200 food banks fighting hunger in America, serving over 46 million people and 60,000 food pantries, and advocating for legislation that addresses
Healthcare Providers’ Consumer Experience Gaps – Learnings from Kaufman Hall’s 2019 Index
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,
How Consumers’ Belt-Tightening Could Impact Health/Care – Insights from Deloitte’s Retail Team
Over the ten years between 2007 and 2017, U.S. consumer spending for education, food and health care substantially grew, crowding out spending for other categories like transportation and housing. Furthermore, income disparity between wealthy Americans and people earning lower-incomes dramatically widened: between 2007-2017, income for high-income earners grew 1,305 percent more than lower-incomes. These two statistics set the kitchen table for spending in and beyond 2019, particularly for younger people living in America, considered in Deloitte’s report, The consumer is changing, but perhaps not how you think. The authors are part of Deloitte Consulting’s Retail team. The retail spending data
Two-Thirds of Americans Say Healthcare Doesn’t Work Well, in RealClear Politics Poll
Health care is the top issue facing the U.S. today, one in three Americans says, with another one-fourth pointing to the economy. Together, health care + the economy rank the top issues for 62% of Americans. Health care and the economy are, in fact, intimately tied in every American’s personal household economy I assert in my book, HealthConsuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen. This poll from RealClear Politics, conducted in late April/early May 2019, makes my point that the patient is the consumer and, facing deductibles and more financial exposure to footing the medical bill, the payor. Fully
When Will Self-Service Come to Health Care?
At least one in three people who have tried out virtual health care have done so because they use technology in all aspects of life and want to do the same with their healthcare. This data point has informed my vision for self-care and the home as our health hub, bolstered in part through the research of Accenture from which this first graphic comes. A common theme at health care meetings these days is how and when health care will meet its Amazon, Apple, or Uber moment? Lately, one of my speaking topics is the “Amazon Prime-ing” of health consumers,
The 3 A’s That Millennials Want From Healthcare: Affordability, Accessibility, Availability
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
Prescription Drug Costs In America Through the Patient Lens, via IQVIA, GoodRx and a New $2 Million Therapy
Americans consumed 17.6 prescriptions per person in 2018, two in three of which treated chronic conditions. Welcome to Medicine Use and Spending in the U.S. , the annual review of prescription drug supply, demand and Rx pricing dynamics from the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science. In a call with analysts this week in which I participated, the Institute’s Executive Director Murray Aitken discussed the report which looks back at 2018 and forward to 2023 with scenarios about what the U.S. prescription drug market might look like five years from now. The report is organized into four sections: medical use
The Convergence of Health/Care and Real Estate
There’s no denying the growth of telehealth, virtual visits, remote health monitoring and mHealth apps in the healthcare landscape. But these growing technologies don’t replace the role of real estate in health, wellness and medical care. Health care is a growing force in retail real estate, according to the ICSC, the acronym for the International Council of Shopping Centers, which has been spending time analyzing, in their words, “what landlords should know in eyeing tenants from a $3.5 trillion industry.” Beyond the obvious retail clinic segment, the ICSC points out a key driving growth lever for its stakeholders, recognizing that,
Across All Political Parties, Likely Voters Over 50 Favor Cutting Prescription Drug Prices
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
Americans’ Trust in U.S. Healthcare Lags Tech — and Women Are Particularly Cynical
The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer measured the biggest gap in trust for the healthcare industry between the U.S. “informed public” and the mass population. Fewer American women, too, trust the healthcare industry than men do. “This inequality of trust may be reflective of the mass population continuing to feel left behind as compared to others, even as they recognize the advances that are being made that could benefit them. Given tone and tenor of the day, and particularly among mass population, healthcare may continue to see increasing demands for change and regulation,” Susan Isenberg, Edelman’s head of healthcare, notes in
Health/Care Everywhere – Re-Imagining Healthcare at ATA 2019
“ATA” is the new three-letter acronym for the American Telemedicine Association, meeting today through Tuesday at the Convention Center in New Orleans. Ann Mond Johnson assumed the helm of CEO of ATA in 2018, and she’s issued a call-to-action across the health/care ecosystem for a delivery system upgrade. Her interview here in HealthLeaders speaks to her vision, recognizing, “It’s just stunning that there’s such a lag between what is possible in telehealth and what is actually happening.” I’m so keen on telehealth, I’m personally participating in three sessions at #ATA19. On Monday 15th April (US Tax Day, which is relevant
The United States of Diabetes: a $1,240 Tax on Every American
Pharmaceutical company executives are testifying in the U.S. Congress this week on the topic of prescription drug costs. One of those medicines, insulin, cost a patient $5,705 for a year’s supply in 2016, double what it cost in 2012, according to the Health Care Cost Institute. Know that one of these insulin products, Lilly’s Humalog, came onto the market in 1996. In typical markets, as products mature and get mass adoption, prices fall. Not so insulin, one of the many cost components in caring for diabetes. But then prescription drug pricing doesn’t conform with how typical markets work in theory.
Finding Healthy Food and Things At Amazon Go In Chicago
Health is everywhere, I find in my travels and in my community. I’m in Chicago at the Becker’s health care conference with VisitPay this week, and had the opportunity to take a walk around the corner from the Hyatt Regency to the Illinois Center to visit one of the few Amazon Go stores operating in the U.S. Here’s what I found in my search for all-things-healthy at retail. You cannot enter an Amazon Go store without downloading the app that’s freely available in your operating system’s appstores for Apple, Google and, yes, Amazon. The app was quick to download, but
Isn’t It Eyeconic? Vision Care in the Evolving Health Care Ecosystem
The vision/optical industry is one piece of the health/care ecosystem, but the segment has not been as directly impacted by patients’ new consumer muscles until just about now. It feels like the vision industry is at an inflection point at this moment, I intuited during yesterday’s convening of Decoding the Consumer: The new science of customer behavior, the theme of the 13th annual global leadership summit hosted by Vision Monday, a program of Jobson Medical Information which is part of the WebMD family. I was grateful to have an opportunity to share my views with attendees on the vision patient as
The Evolution of Self-Care for Consumers – Learning and Sharing at CHPA
Self-care in health goes back thousands of years. Reading from Hippocrates’ Corpus about food and clean air’s role in health sounds contemporary today. And even in our most cynical moments, we can all hearken back to our grandmothers’ kitchen table wisdom for dealing with skin issues, the flu, and broken hearts. The annual conference of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) convened this week, and I was grateful to attend and speak on the evolving retail health landscape yesterday. Gary Downing, CEO of Clarion Brands and Chairman of the CHPA Board, kicked off the first day with a nostalgic look
Self-Care Is Healthcare In Consumers’ Hands, Peaking on Google Trends
Today, the number of searches on Google using the phrase “self-care” reached a high, shown in the line graph I created on Google Trends and marked up in red. A Google search overall yielded over 2 billion results. I started this search when the Great Recession began in the U.S. in December 2007, and tracked “self-care” searches to today, 15 March 2019. I ran this little test because I’m speaking on Monday 18 March at the annual meeting of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association. CHPA was founded in 1881 as the “Proprietary Association.” In 1989, over 100 years later, the
Loving Wegmans and Amazon, Hating on the US Government: the Axios Harris Poll 100 in 2019
Americans love grocery stores, responsible retailers, technology and Amazon, Axios and Harris Poll found in this year’s top 100 visible company poll. The bottom five of the 100 include a big bank that ripped off consumers, a bankrupt retailer, a Big Tobacco company, and two organizations led by President Trump: The Trump Organization (#98) and the U.S. Government (#100). The summary points to five key findings in the report: The U.S. Government is the worst “company” in America according to “The Citizens of America,” in the words of Axios and Harris Poll. Americans have acquired “prime” tastes and expectations through
Most Americans Across Party ID Favor U.S. Government Negotiation to Lower Rx Drug Costs
There’s little Americans, by political party, agree upon in 2019. One of the only issues bringing people together in the U.S. is prescription drug prices — that they’re too high, that the Federal government should negotiate to lower costs for Medicare enrollees, and that out-of-pocket costs for drugs should be limited. The Kaiser Family Foundation has been tracking this topic for a few years, and this month, their March 2019 Health Tracking Poll shows vast majorities of Democrats, Independents and Republicans all share these sentiments. It’s not that patients who take prescription drugs don’t appreciate them – most (58%) say medicines
Time To Travel And Wait In Health Care: The Opportunity For Self-Care At Home
What industry compels its “consumers” to wait longer and travel further for services more than any other in a person’s daily life? That would be health care, a report from Altarum notes. People travel further and wait longer for medical services than for veterinary care (second in this line-up), auto repair, banking, and household services. The annual opportunity cost for travel and wait time in health care is $89 billion, Altarum estimated. For the average person, that translates to 34 minutes of travel time and 11 minutes waiting time at the provider’s office. In terms of personal opportunity costs, Altarum gauged the
Cost and Convenience Underpin Patient Demands As Health Consumers
Across generations, from younger to older patients, cost, transparency and convenience drive consumer satisfaction, Accenture’s latest health consumer survey found. I had the opportunity to brainstorm the study’s findings in real-time on the day of survey launch, 12 February, with Dr. Kaveh Safavi, Brian Kalis, and Jenn Francis at HIMSS19. Our starting point was the tipping-point statistic that over 50% of people in the U.S. have chosen to use a non-traditional health care setting. Those non-traditional sites of care include walk-in and retail clinics, outpatient surgery centers, virtual health (whether on the phone, on video or via mobile apps), on-demand services,
Open Table for Health: Patients Are Online For Health Search and Physician Reviews
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
“Telehealth is a digital distribution channel for health care” – catching up with Roy Schoenberg, President and CEO of American Well
Ten years ago, two brothers, physicians both, started up a telemedicine company called American Well. They launched their service first in Hawaii, where long distances and remote island living challenged the supply and demand sides of health care providers and patients alike. A decade later, I sat down for a “what’s new?” chat with Roy Schoenberg, American Well President and CEO. In full transparency, I enjoy and appreciate the opportunity to meet with Roy (or very occasionally Ido, the co-founding brother-other-half) every year at HIMSS and sometimes at CES. In our face-to-face brainstorm this week, we covered a wide range
Telehealth and Virtual Care Are Melting Into “Just” Health Care at HIMSS19
Just as we experienced “e-business” departments blurring into ecommerce and everyday business processes, so is “telehealth” morphing into, simply, health care delivery as one of many channels and platforms. Telehealth and virtual care are key education topics and exhibitor presences at HIMSS19. Several factors underpin the adoption of telehealth in 2019: Consumers’ demand for accessible, lower-cost health care services as people face greater financial responsibility for paying the medical bill (via high-deductible health plans and greater out-of-pocket costs for co-payments) Some consumers’ lacking or losing health insurance as ACA coverage eroded in the past two years, resulting in these patients
The Expectation Gap Between What Patients Want Vs What They Get
Talk to me, patients are demanding in unison. Most health consumers expect providers to communicate about routine health care and prevention; this is especially true among those patients trying to manage chronic conditions we learn from 10 Ways to Fulfill Patients’ Communication Wish List, a report based on a consumer survey from West, the communications and network infrastructure company. Four in five patients say that talking to “me” means they want personalized recommendations to their unique needs – but only one-third of patients say they’re getting that level of service from their healthcare providers. Most health consumers expect providers to communicate about
Consumers Expand Their Definition of Well-Being to Include Food-As-Medicine
Consumers put food front-and-center when thinking about their health. Viewing food-as-medicine is going mainstream for health consumers, who look beyond the “medicine” in that phrase toward a broader concept of personal well-being. This is the theme of a new report from the FMI Foundation called The Power of Health and Well-Being in Food Retail. The report’s insights are based on surveys FMI has conducted over the past two years, as the Foundation has observed that consumers broadening their definition of health to include emotional health, energy levels, and sleep quality. The consumer-as-medical-bill-payor is now looking at foods with health benefits, first
Kohl’s and the Rebranded Weight Watchers in Retail Health
For the past two holiday shopping seasons in 2017 and 2018, I’d noticed pre-print ads in my local Sunday newspaper from Kohl’s, the value-priced retailer, featuring wearable technology for health. There were devices branded Fitbit on the front page of Black Friday’s 2018 ad, shown here, with other tech brands promoted inside the pages. These ads were bundled in my newspaper along with ones from Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and other retailers featuring the same or similar wearable health-tech. This week, Kohl’s announced a collaboration with WW, the newly-rebranded Weight Watchers, for the retailer to bring a WW “salon” space
Calling Out Health Equity on Martin Luther King Day 2019
On this weekend as we appreciate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., I post a photo of him in my hometown of Detroit in 1963, giving a preliminary version of the “I Have a Dream” speech he would deliver two months later in Washington, DC. Wisdom from the speech: “But now more than ever before, America is forced to grapple with this problem, for the shape of the world today does not afford us the luxury of an anemic democracy. The price that this nation must pay for the continued oppression and exploitation of the Negro or any other
It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019
This is not a watch. Well, not just a watch. It can track heart rate. And it’s not even pink. Well, rose gold, perhaps. One of the benefits about being a woman attending CES is that there are no lines in the loos. The men’s rooms, however, are, shall we say, over-subscribed due to the big disparity between the number of male attendees versus females. Clearly, women are under-represented in technology companies at all levels, as the ladies’ room observation and many other more statistical reports recognize. But I’ve good news to report on the product front about women-focused consumer
The Consumer as Payor – Retail Health at CES 2019
All health/care is retail now in America. I say this as most people in the U.S. who have health insurance must take on a deductible of some amount, which compels that insured individual to spend the first dollar on medical services up until they meet their financial commitment. At that point, health insurance kicks in, and then the insured may have to spend additional funds on co-payments for general medicines and services, and coinsurance for specialty drugs like injectables and high-cost new therapies. The patient is a consumer is a payor, I asserted today during my talk on the expanding
Shelly Palmer De-Hypes CES 2019 & Has Lessons for Health/Care
I had the pleasure once again of attending Shelly Palmer’s annual kick-off breakfast where he level-sets our expectations for CES two hours before the tech halls open. Shelly is a consumer tech expert and leads the Palmer Group; comments on Fox 5 in NYC, CNN, and CNBC; writes a weekly column in Advertising Age; composes music; and he’s a Renaissance Man who’s a generous sharer of knowledge with a great sense of humor and humanity. Shelly is one of my trusted touchpoints for all-things-consumer-tech. His message at the start of #CES2019: this year, the show is about connectivity and partnership.
What #CES2019 5 Tech Trends to Watch Mean for Health/Care
As #CES2019 kicks off in Las Vegas with today’s first Media Day, the Consumer Technology Association presented its forecast on the 5 Technology Trends to Watch in 2019 — and they all play into health, wellness, and medical care. The five trends are: Artificial Intelligence on the Rise Envisioning the Smart Home of the Future Digital Health Tech Empowers Patients Esports and Sports Technology, and Smart Cities Promote Resilience. Here are how these five mega-trends can bolster our health and healthcare products and services over the next decade. AI is indeed on-the-rise in healthcare: as I have begun planning my agenda for
Here’s Looking at Health at CES 2019
If I’m going to spend a week someplace, it usually has to be Italy. So next week in Las Vegas, I’ll deal with that bias by staying at the Venetian Hotel for the entire week to cover all-things-health at CES 2019, the annual convening of electronics retailers and enthusiasts. Most of the 180,000+ folks come to Vegas from over 150 countries to kick the proverbial tires on TVs, autos, games, virtual reality, 3-D printing, drones, and other shiny new things. For me, for the past eight years, CES means consumer-facing health in a person’s hands, on her phone, and increasingly
Costs, Consumerism, Cyber and Care, Everywhere – The 2019 Health Populi TrendCast
Today is Boxing Day and St. Stephens Day for people who celebrate Christmas, so I share this post as a holiday gift with well-wishes for you and those you love. The tea leaves have been brewing here at THINK-Health as we prepared our 2019 forecast at the convergence of consumers, health, and technology. Here’s our trend-weaving of 4 C’s for 2019: costs, consumerism, cyber and care, everywhere… Health care costs will continue to be a mainstream pocketbook issue for patients and caregivers, with consequences for payors, suppliers and ultimately, policymakers. Legislators inside the DC Beltway will be challenged by the
Blood Pressure From the Wrist for the First Time – Welcome, Omron HeartGuide
For the first time, we can take a clinically accurate blood pressure measurement from our wrist — welcome to the first of its kind wrist-worn blood pressure monitor, HeartGuide, brought to market by Omron. I know this journey has been a long, patient one, as I came to know Ranndy Kellogg, Omron’s President and CEO, several years ago at CES. Back in 2017, I spoke with Ranndy about the vision for BP measurement for Everyday People that would be a streamlined, simple consumer experience that the traditional armband and pump didn’t offer. I wrote about
Retail Health Ends 2018 With Big Plans for 2019
As the CVS + Aetna merger crosses its last regulatory hurdle at the close of 2018, we enter 2019 facing a fast-growing and -morphing retail health landscape. I brainstormed retail health yesterday with Patrick Freuler, CEO of Audicus (developer of hearing aids sold direct-to-consumer over-the-counter) and Shai Gozani, CEO of NeuroMetrix, maker of the Quell device for pain management. The three of us will be on a panel addressing retail health disruption at CES 2019 on 9th January 2019 at the Digital Health Summit. I explained to Shai what I’m going to say in my talk about retail health at