Most Americans See Rise of Mental Health Issues, Poorly Treated by the Health System (with a postscript on Walmart Health)
While people in the U.S. perceive a dramatic rise in mental health conditions among fellow health citizens growing over the past five years, people note barriers of cost, insufficient supply of providers, and stigma as barriers to getting care in the latest Gallup and West Health poll on the subject. In West Health’s words, three-quarters of Americans feel that, “mental health takes a back seat to physical health” in the U.S. A key theme of the research found that Americans find that mental health is not treated as well as physical health in
A Vote for Telehealth is a Vote for American Patients’ and Doctors’ Well-Being
Whether you’re a patient or a physician in the U.S., you’re burned out, tapped out, stressed out, timed out. While the 118th U.S. Congress can’t agree on much before the 2024 summer recess, there’s one bipartisan stroke of political pens in Washington, DC, that could provide some satisfaction for both patients and doctors: bring telehealth back to patients and providers permanently. Those pens would do two things to modernize American health care for both patients and doctors: first, Congress would pass the CONNECT for Health Act (HR 4189. S 2016) and second, re-introduce and sign the Telehealth Modernization Act.
AI: Patients Included
“Clinical transformation with AI is easier without patients.” When Dr. Grace Cordovano heard this statement on a panel of physicians convening to share perspectives on the future of AI in health care held in early March 2024, the board-certified patient advocate felt, in her words, “insulted on behalf of the patient communities I know that are working tirelessly to advance AI that works for them.” “The healthcare ecosystem and policy landscape must formally recognize patients as end-users and co-creators of AI,” Cordovano wrote to me in an e-mail exchange. “Patients, their care partners, caregivers, and advocates are already utilizing AI
The Economic Contours of the Change Healthcare Cyber Attack: Taking Stock So Far
On February 22, 2024, I went to a CVS Pharmacy-Inside-Target in my community to fill a prescription for benzonatate 200 mg capsules. I had caught a bad case of the flu the week before, and subsequently suffered a very long tail of a cough. That’s TMI for me to write about in the Health Populi blog, but this story has a current-events twist: the pharmacist could not electronically link with my insurance company to transact my payment. He tried a few work-flows, and ended up using a discount card which in the moment worked for us, and I paid the
Why Elevance Health is “Prescribing” Phones for Members
You’ve heard of food-as-medicine and exercise-as-medicine. Now we see the emergence of telecomms-as-medicine — or more specifically, a driver of health, access, and empowerment. Elevance Health, the health plan organization serving 117 million members, launched a program to channel mobile phones and data plans into the hands of some Medicaid plan enrollees, explained in the organization’s press release on the program. To implement this program and get connectivity into consumers’ hands and homes, Elevance Health is collaborating with several telecomms companies including Verizon, AT&T, Samsung, and T-Mobile. Funding is supported by the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program.
Access to Technology Is the New Pillar for Well-Being: CES & the UN Partner for Human Security for All
In kicking off #CES2024, CTA’s researchers noted the acceleration of global connectivity, with gaps in peoples’ ability to connect depending where they live: by region, the percent of people connected to the internet today are, according to CTA’s data, 92% in the U.S. 87% in the E.U. 76% in Latin America 73% in China 55% in Nigeria 46% in India. Such gaps in connectivity threaten peoples’ individual well-being, but also social and political stability that impacts the entire world’s security. And not to overlook, as well, the promise of AI to do good at scale at the enterprise-level, globally.
How Misinformation in Health Care Can Lead to Being “Dead Wrong” — KFF and Dr. G Connect the Dots
Three in four U.S. health citizens say the spread of false information about health issues is a major problem, found in Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Misinformation Tracking Poll Pilot published earlier this month. KFF’s press release on the study summarized the top-line with, “Most Americans Encounter Health Misinformation, and Most Aren’t Sure Whether It’s True or False.” Explaining the implications of the broad reach of health misinformation in the U.S., Dr. Geeta Nayyar has written the book Dead Wrong: Diagnosing and Treating Healthcare’s Misinformation Illness, due out on October 17th and available now for pre-purchase
Virtual Health Care Can Reduce Carbon Emissions: the Environmental ROI on Telehealth
As implemented in the COVID-19 era and its immediate wake, the most obvious environmental benefits offered by telehealth visits replacing in-person patient encounters have been achieved through reduced patient travel, considering The Role of Virtual Consulting in Developing Environmentally Sustainable Health Care, a systematic literature review published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. This study, led by researchers at the University of Oxford, UK, and the University of Oslo, Norway, identified over 1,600 scientific papers, narrowing the most rigorous and relevant to 23 papers focusing on virtual consulting and carbon emissions. This is an important question for two major
Quick, Accessible, Inexpensive Health Care – A Retail Health Update from Amazon and Dollar General
Two announcements this week add important initiatives to patients’ growing choices that speak to their consumer-sides’ sense of value and personal healthcare cost-containment: Amazon launched RxPass, a generic medicines subscription service; and, Dollar General promoted its mobile health service powered by DocGo on demand for health visits, “right outside the store.” These two programs come from outside of the legacy health care system of so-called incumbents — hospitals, health systems, health insurance — leveraging two brand-names beloved to many consumers for convenience, price transparency, and sheer cost. First, check out Amazon Pharmacy’s RxPass. Amazon
The Heart Health Continuum at #CES2023 – From Prevention and Monitoring to Healthy Eating and Sleep
“Are we losing the battle against heart disease?” asks the lead article featured in the January 2023 issue of the AARP Bulletin. “Despite breathtaking medical advancements since President Harry Truman declared war on heart disease 75 years ago, researchers have observed a disturbing trend that started in 2009: America’s death rate from heart-related conditions is climbing again,” the detailed essay explains. AARP is in fact a very visible stakeholder in the 2023 CES, collaborating on the AgeTech content track at the tech conference. The track covers all aspects of aging well, from financial health to entertainment,
Your State as a Determinant of Health: Sharecare’s 2021 Community Well-Being Index
People whose sense of well-being shifted positively in the past two years are finding greater personal purpose and financial health, we see in Sharecare’s Community Well-Being Index – 2021 State Rankings Report. Sharecare has been annually tracking well-being across the 50 U.S. states since 2008. When the study launched, Well-Being Index evaluated five domains: physical, social, community, purpose, and financial. In 2020, Sharecare began a collaboration with the Boston University School of Public Health to expand the Index, including drivers of health such as, Healthcare access (like physician supply per 1,000
Consumers’ Dilemma: Health and Wealth, Smartwatches and Transparency
Even as spending on healthcare per person in the United States is twice as much as other wealthy countries in the world, Americans’ health status ranks rock bottom versus those other rich nations. The U.S. health system continues to be marred by health inequalities and access challenges for man health citizens. Furthermore, American workers’ rank top in the world for feeling burnout from and overworked on the job. Welcome to The Consumer Dilemma: Health and Wellness,, a report from GWI based on the firm’s ongoing consumer research on peoples’ perspectives in the wake of
Mental Health Risks in Mid-2022 Related More to Global Anxieties and Safety, Not-So-Much COVID
With peoples’ anxiety about COVID-19 at its lowest point since 2020, folks are most anxious in spring 2022 about current global events and the safety of their families, based on the latest Healthy Minds study from the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Morning Consult conducted the poll for the APA in March and April 2022 among 2,210 U.S. adults. The survey covered peoples’ perspectives on mental health care, anxiety, COVID-19, children’s mental health, and the workplace. The results were published May 22, 2022. The key findings of the study were that, 3 in 4 people are
Digital Health Adoption Across Communities is Uneven By Rurality, Race, Health Plan, and Gender
While telehealth, mobile health apps, and wearable technology are all growing for mainstream consumers, there are gaps in adoption based on where a person lives, their health insurance plan type, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender. Thanks to the team at Rock Health, we know more about these gaps explained in their report, Startup innovation for underserved groups: 2021 digital health consumer adoption insights, published this week. The report examines three areas of digital health adoption: Live video telemedicine Wearable technology ownership, and Digital health tracking. We all know the mantra that our ZIP code impacts our
Telehealth is Health: It’s Telehealth Awareness Week
In April 2020, telemedicine morphed into mainstream medical care as hospitals and physicians risk-managed exposure to infection by meeting with patients, virtually, when possible. By March 2020, telehealth channels were replacing visits to doctors and emergency departments as shown in the first chart from the CDC’s report on the early pandemic period. By the spring of 2021, telehealth use stabilized, but health systems had built the processes and policies to deliver on the promise of omni-channel health care — from the patient’s home and hands (via smartphones) into community sites closer-to-home, and returning to brick-and-mortar medical buildings. Welcome to Telehealth
Necessity is the Mother(board) – How COVID-19 Inspires Local Communities to Build Broadband
“The simple fact is that the federal and state governments are doing almost nothing to help people who have a broadband service available that partially meets their needs but abuses them with regular price hikes, spotty reliability, and poor customer service. Local governments will continue to step in to build better networks because communities have very few other options.” That “necessity is the mother” motivation to build broadband comes from Christopher Mitchell, Director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). [FYI, Mitchell’s Twitter handle is @communitynets]. Mitchell is quoted in the story, New data
Zoom Became a Household Name in the Pandemic. It’s Working to Do the Same in Healthcare – At #HIMSS21
The COVID-19 pandemic digitally transformed most people living in the U.S., re-shaping consumers to work from home when possible, go to school there, and buy all manners of goods and services via ecommerce. In March 2021, Zoom conducted research into the question, “how virtual do we want our future to be?” posing that to thousands of citizens living in 10 countries including the U.S. As the first chart from the study illustrates, most people in America expect hybrid lifestyles, from fitness and retail to entertainment and education. And 7 in 10 U.S. health citizens want their health care to be
Healthy Living Trends Inspired by COVID-19: Retailers, Food, and Consumers’ Growing Self-Care Muscles
“Self-care” took on new meaning and personal work-flows for people living in and through the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. Acosta, the retail market research pro’s, updated our understanding consumers evolving as COVID-19 Has Elevated the Health and Wellness Trends of the Recent Years, results of a survey conducted among in May 2021. In the U.S., consumers’ take on self-care has most to do with healthy eating and nutrition (for 1 in 2 people), getting regular medical checkups (for 42%), taking exercise, relaxing, using vitamins and supplements, and getting good sleep. Healthy relationships are an integral part of self-care for
Dollar General, the Latest Retail Health Destination?
“What if…healthcare happened where we live, work, play, pray and shop, delivering the highest levels of retail experience?” I asked and answered in my book HealthConsuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen. The chapter called “The new retail health” began with that “what if,” and much of the book responded with the explanation of patients evolving toward health consumers and, ultimately, health citizens empowered and owning their health and care. This week, Dollar General announced the hiring of its first Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Albert Wu. With that announcement, America’s largest dollar-store chain makes clear its ambitions to join a
Digital Inclusion As Upstream Health Investment
Without access to connectivity during the pandemic, too many people could not work for their living, attend school and learn, connect with loved ones, or get health care. The COVID-19 era has shined a bright light on what some of us have been saying since the advent of the Internet’s emergence in health care: that digital literacies and connectivity are “super social determinants of health” because they underpin other social determinants of health, discussed in Digital inclusion as a social determinant of health, published in Nature’s npj Digital Medicine. On the downside, lack of access to digital tools and literacies
The Healthiest Communities in the U.S. After the Pandemic – U.S. News & Aetna Foundation’s Post-COVID Lists
Some of America’s least-healthy communities are also those that index greater for vaccine hesitancy and other risks for well-being, found in U.S. News & World Report’s 2021 Healthiest Communities Rankings. U.S. News collaborated with the Aetna Foundation, CVS Health’s philanthropic arm, in this fourth annual list of the top geographies for well-being in the U.S. Six of the top ten healthiest towns in America are located in the state of Colorado. But #1 belongs to Los Alamos County, New Mexico, which also ranked first in ___. Beyond Colorado and New Mexico, we find that Virginia fared well for health in
Health Disparities and the Risks of Social Determinants for COVID-19 – 14 Months of Evidence
In April 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a report featuring evidence that in the month of March 2020, the coronavirus pandemic was not an equal-opportunity killer. Within just a couple of months of COVID-19 emerging in America, it became clear that health disparities were evident in outcomes due to complications from the coronavirus. An update from that early look at differences in COVID-19 diagnoses and mortality rates was published in Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Current Evidence and Policy Approaches, In this report, the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, part of
Virtual Health Tech Enables the Continuum of Health from Hospital to Home
In the COVID-19 pandemic, as peoples’ daily lives shifted closer and closer to home, and for some weeks and months home-all-the-time, health care, too, moved beyond brick-and-mortar hospitals and doctors’ offices. The public health crisis accelerated “what’s next” for health care delivery, detailed in A New Era of Virtual Health, a report published by TripleTree. TripleTree is an investment bank that has advised health care transactions since 1997. As such, the team has been involved in digital health financing and innovation for 24 years, well before the kind of platforms, APIs, and cloud computing now enabling telehealth and care, everywhere. The
Emerging with A Stronger Healthcare System Post-COVID: NAM’s Lessons Learned
The coronavirus pandemic exposed weaknesses in the U.S. health care system that existed before the public health crisis. What lessons can be learned from the COVID-19 stress-test to build American health care back better? The National Academy of Medicine is publishing nine reports addressing health stakeholder segments impacted and re-shaped by COVID-19 — for public health, quality and safety, health care payers, clinicians, research, patients-families-communities, health product manufacturers, digital health, and care systems. The report on health care systems and providers was released this week: COVID-19 Impact Assessment: Lessons Learned and Compelling Needs was authored by experts on the front-line
Depression and Anxiety are Toxic Side Effects of the Coronavirus Pandemic
Most psychologists in the U.S. treated more patients in the first six months of the coronavirus pandemic, shifting their practices to telehealth platforms. These therapists got more referrals and saw fewer cancellations, and one-third treated patients who lived in a different state from their practice site, according to Patients with Depression and Anxiety Surge as Psychologists Respond to the Coronavirus Pandemic from the American Psychological Association (APA). For this study, APA polled 1,787 licensed psychologists (both members and non-members in the Association) in the U.S. between late August and early October 2020. This year, APA has published four reports on
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
The Book on Deaths of Despair – Deaton & Case On Education, Pain, Work and the Future of Capitalism
Anne Case and Angus Deaton were working in a cabin in Montana the summer of 2014. Upon analyzing mortality data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, they noticed that death rates were rising among middle-aged white people. “We must have hit a wrong key,” they note in the introduction of their book, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. This reversal of life span in America ran counter to a decades-long trend of lower mortality in the U.S., a 20th century accomplishment, Case and Deaton recount. In the 300 pages that follow, the researchers deeply dive into and
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
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
100 Million People in America Lack Broadband — an On-Ramp to Health and Safety
One in three Americans does not have a broadband connection, according to a new report from the NPD Group. This means that about 100 million people in the U.S. can’t benefit from telehealth and other digital health connections that can bolster self-care, home care, and lower cost care. Most of these folks in the broadband-digital divide live in rural America/ “The so-called digital divide, between those that can or cannot make the best use of the Internet, can be clearly felt in rural markets where the lack of broadband impacts everything from entertainment to the educational system,” Eddie Hold, President
The Number of Unintended Deaths From Car Accidents, Falls and Overdoses in America Grew 40% Between 1999 and 2017
The rate of deaths due to unintentional injuries in the U.S. grew by 40% between 1999 and 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Three mortality line items make up this overall statistic: Deaths from motor vehicle traffic injuries Deaths from unintentional drug overdoses (that is, not including suicides which are defined as “intentional”), and Deaths due to unintentional falls. The line graph illustrates the macro trend on the top-line, with the three specific causes underneath. You see deaths due to falls, motor vehicle accidents, and drug overdoses increased over the eighteen years. Drug overdose death rates began
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.