Stress Is A Social Determinant of Health – Money and Politics Top the List in 2017
The American Psychological Association reports that Americans are experiencing greater levels of stress in 2017 for the first time since initiating the Stress in America Survey ten years ago in 2007. This is a statistically significant finding, APA calculated. The member psychologists of the American Psychological Association (APA) began to report that patients were coming to appointments increasingly anxious about the 2016 Presidential election. So the APA polled U.S. adults on politics for the first time in ten years of conducting the Stress in America survey. Two-thirds of Americans are stressed and/or anxious about the future of the nation, and
Will Republican Healthcare Policy “Make America Sick Again?” Two New Polls Show Growing Support for ACA
Results of two polls published in the past week, from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Pew Research Center, demonstrate growing support for the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Future Directions for the ACA and Medicaid was published 24 February 2017. The first line chart illustrates the results, with the blue line for consumers’ “favorable view” on the ACA crossing several points above the “unfavorable” orange line for the first time since the law was signed in 2010. The margins in February 2017 were 48% favorable, 42% unfavorable. While the majority of Republicans continue to be solidly
Images of Health, Vitality and Life at #HIMSS17
The plane has left the Orlando airport, and I’m looking back at the past week at the 2017 annual meeting of HIMSS, the annual health IT conference that has been my pleasure and (foot) pain to attend for the past two+ decades (for real). Walking the exhibition floor, I encountered some new flavors of imaging that went way beyond bits and bytes, data and technology. These images spoke to me of health, vitality, and life. I’m sharing them with you here, with no intention of selling you company products or services but simply sharing some images that speak to these
How Amazon Has Primed Healthcare Consumers – My Update with Frances Dare, Accenture
“I want what I want, when and how I want it.” If you think that sounds like a spoiled child, that’s not who I’m quoting. It’s you, if you are a mainstream consumer in the U.S., increasingly getting “primed” by Amazon which is setting a new bar for retail experience in terms of immediacy, customer service, and breadth of offerings. I talked about this phenomenon in my Health Populi post, How Amazon Has Primed Healthcare Consumers. The blog discussed my take on Accenture’s latest study into healthcare consumers based on the report’s press release. I appreciated the opportunity to sit
Cybersecurity and Healthcare Consumers: My Conversation with Dr. Kaveh Safavi, Accenture
Patients are morphing into consumers, but with eyes wide open: they know about data breaches, and they increasingly demand healthcare services delivered on their own terms. I met with Accenture’s Dr. Kaveh Safavi, Frances Dare, and Jenn Francis at HIMSS17 to discuss their latest research into these two topics. In this post, I’ll cover the growing challenge of cybersecurity and what Accenture learned about consumer data breaches. Tomorrow I’ll discuss Accenture’s latest findings on the expectations of the evolving health/care consumer. [Spoiler alert: personal health information data security is one of those expectations]. At HIMSS17, the issue of cybersecurity is
From EHRecords to EHDelivery: Talking With Dr. Roy Schoenberg of American Well
Telehealth has come of age at HIMSS in 2017. No longer is the concept relegated to footnote or edge-booth status on the conference floor. Instead, telehealth, broadly defined, is now a mainstream concept embraced by healthcare providers, payors and, increasingly, consumers. I spent time brainstorming telehealth with one of the pioneers of modern telehealth in the U.S., Dr. Roy Schoenberg, who co-founded American Well with his brother Ido Schoenberg, in 2007. As such, the company is among the most mature telehealth entities operating in America, delivering live video health visits to millions of health consumers through the American Well telehealth
Healthcare and the Autonomous Car: Setting the Stage for HIMSS17
The autonomous car is a metaphor for healthcare: that’s how my first interview kicking off the HIMSS marathon began. The annual 2017 HIMSS conference isn’t your father’s or mother’s HIMSS of ten years ago, or even the HIMSS of 2010 — the year that financial incentives for EHR adoption began to stream from the HITECH Act of 2009, motivating thousands of healthcare providers to acquire and meaningfully use digital health records systems. Then, the HIMSS conference floor was abuzz with EHR frenzy. This week, over 43,000 people working at the intersection of healthcare and technology have converged in Orlando, Florida, for
Digital Technology Is A Bridge To Healthcare Consumers: A HIMSS Preface
“Digital technology can provide a bridge to the healthcare system via sensors, tools, and trackers for people who are living their lives each day,” I explained to the social media team at Philips, which is morphing as an organization to being all digital health, all-the-time. (Here’s what I learned about Philips and digital health in January 2017 after meeting with Jeroen Tas at the CES in Vegas). Here’s the larger discussion, shared with several of my fellow members of the HIMSS Social Media Ambassador family. I’ll be meeting with Philips’ leadership at HIMSS, the annual health IT conference that
20% of the US Economy Will Be Healthcare Spending in 2025
Price increases and growing use of healthcare services will drive national health spending (NHE) in the U.S. to 20% of the nation’s economy by 2025, according to projections calculated by a team from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Health spending will reach $3.6 trillion dollars this year. These were published in a Web-First article in Health Affairs on 15 February 2017 The caveat on these numbers is that the CMS team used economic models based on “current-law framework:” these make no assumptions about legislative changes that may occur in healthcare reform between 2017 and 2025. While that’s a
Marketing Medicines: Going Boldly and Accessibly for Rx
Over the past two weeks, we see two marketing campaigns emerge to market medicines: first, from the branded pharmaceutical association PhRMA, the #GoBoldly initiative with a theme of innovation and personalized medicine. Second, there’s a campaign from the Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA), rebranding the organization as the Association for Accessible Medicines with the tagline, “keep medicines in reach.” What’s this all about? To put these marketing initiatives in context, let’s start with the publication of Express Scripts 2016 Drug Trend Report. “Drug trend” is short-hand for growth in prescription drug spending, year on year. The first graph illustrates the price index
How Amazon Has Primed Healthcare Consumers
We are all Amazon Prime primed as consumers now. So it should not surprise healthcare providers, plans and suppliers that consumers expect just-in-time convenience for their healthcare, Accenture has found. Mind the gap: 8 in 10 U.S. patients would welcome some aspect of virtual healthcare, but only 1 in 5 providers is meeting that need. The consumer demand for virtual care is palpable for: Tracking biometrics, among 77% of consumers (say, for measuring blood pressure or blood glucose for people managing diabetes) Following up appointments, for 76% of people after seeing a doctor or being discharged from hospital Receiving reminders
My $100 Flu Shot: How Much Paper Waste Costs U.S. Healthcare
An abbreviated version of this post appeared in the Huffington Post on 9 February 2017. This version includes the Health Populi Hot Points after the original essay, discussing the consumer’s context of retail experience in healthcare and implications for the industry under Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price — a proponent of consumer-directed healthcare and, especially, health savings accounts. We’ll be brainstorming the implications of the 2016 CAQH Index during a Tweetchat on Thursday, February 16, at 2 pm ET, using the hashtag #CAQHchat. America ranks dead-last in healthcare efficiency compared with our peer countries, the Commonwealth Fund
Health Care Worries Top Terrorism, By Far, In Americans’ Minds
Health care is the top concern of American families, according to a Monmouth University Poll conducted in the week prior to Donald Trump’s Presidential inauguration. Among U.S. consumers’ top ten worries, eight in ten directly point to financial concerns — with health care costs at the top of the worry-list for 25% of people. Health care financial worries led the second place concern, job security and unemployment, by a large margin (11 percentage points) In third place was “everyday bills,” the top concern for 12% of U.S. adults. Immigration was the top worry for only 3% of U.S. adults; terrorism and
Patients Anxiously Prep to Be Healthcare Consumers, Alegeus Finds
Healthcare consumers are in a “state of denial,” according to research conducted for Alegeus, the consumer health benefits company. Overall, 3 in 4 consumers feel fear when it comes to their healthcare finances: most people worry about being hit with unexpected healthcare costs they can’t afford, and nearly half fear they won’t be able to afford their family’s healthcare needs. The wordle illustrates consumers’ mixed feelings about healthcare: while people feel frustrated, overwhelmed, powerless, confused and skeptical about healthcare in America, there are some emerging adjectives hinting at growing consumer health muscle-building: optimistic, hopeful, supported, engaged, accountable. Still, denial and
Americans Far More Likely to Self-Ration Prescription Drugs Due To Cost
Americans are more than five times more likely to skip medication doses or not fill prescriptions due to cost than peers in the United Kingdom or Switzerland. U.S. patients are twice as likely as Canadians to avoid medicines due to cost. And, compared with health citizens in France, U.S. consumers are ten-times more likely to be non-adherent to prescription medications due to cost. It’s very clear that more consumers tend to avoid filling and taking prescription drugs, due to cost barriers, when faced with higher direct charges for medicines. This evidence is presented in the research article, Cost-related non-adherence to prescribed
I'm in amazing company here with other #digitalhealth innovators, thinkers and doers. Thank you to Cristian Cortez Fernandez and Zallud for this recognition; I'm grateful.
Jane was named as a member of the AHIP 2024 Advisory Board, joining some valued colleagues to prepare for the challenges and opportunities facing health plans, systems, and other industry stakeholders. Looking forward to AHIP 2024 in Las Vegas come June 11-13, 2024.
Join Jane at AHIP's annual meeting in Las Vegas: I'll be speaking, moderating a panel, and providing thought leadership on health consumers and bolstering equity, empowerment, and self-care.