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How Consumers’ Economic Sentiments Are Shaping Peoples’ Financial and Emotional Well-Being (Spoiler: Not So Good): Learning from CivicScience

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 1 May 2025 in Anxiety, Banks and health, Beauty and health, Behavioral health, Business and health, Chronic care, Chronic disease, Connected health, Connectivity, Consumer electronics, Consumer experience, Consumer-directed health, Coronavirus, Corporate responsibility, COVID-19, CX, Demographics and health, Depression, Design and health, Diet and health, DTC health, Empathy, Environment and heatlh, Family, Financial health, Financial toxicity, Financial wellness, Food and health, Food as medicine, Food security, Grocery stores, Health and Beauty, Health and safety, Health and wealth, Health at home, Health care industry, Health care marketing, Health Consumers, Health costs, Health disparities, Health Economics, Health ecosystem, Health engagement, Health equity, Health finance, Health insurance, Health marketing, Health social networks, Healthcare access, Home economics, Home health, Hospital to home, Housing and health, Hygiene and health, Jobs and health, Loneliness, Love and health, media and health, Medical banking, Medical bills, Medical debt, Medical technology, Mental health, Money and health, Nutrition, Omnichannel healthcare, OTCs, Out of pocket costs, Patient engagement, Patient experience, Patient safety, Personal health finance, Pharmacy, Popular culture and health, Prescription drugs, Prevention, Prevention and wellness, Public health, Race and health, Retail health, Safety net and health, SDoH, Self-care, Shopping and health, Social determinants of health, Social health, Social isolation, Social media and health, Social networks and health, Social responsibility, Stress, Tariffs, Techquity, Transparency, Trust, User experience UX, Wellbeing

When it comes to health, the words “fiscal” and “physical” are morphing as peoples’ economic feelings (the “fiscal”) are shaping physical and emotional health, we find in U.S. consumer data presented by John Dick, Founder and CEO of CivicScience.                 The Consumer Technology Association convened a special session with John, who painted a portrait of the U.S. consumer at a point in time — late April 2025 — reminding us more than once during the hourlong session that, “Everything is constantly changing.” One certainty that we can be sure of, in the dismal-scientist way

 

U.S. Health Care in 2025 Requires Scenario Planning: The Uncertainties (AI!?) That Inspire DIY Healthcare

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on 15 April 2025 in Artificial intelligence, Big Tech, Broadband, Cardiovascular health, Caregivers, Clinical trials, Connected health, Consumer electronics, Consumer experience, Consumer-directed health, CX, Demographics and health, Design and health, Determinants of health, Diabetes, Diet and health, Digital health, DIY, DTC health, Empathy, Employee benefits, Employers, Environment and heatlh, Family, Food and health, Food as medicine, Food security, Future of health care, GenAI, Global Health, GLP-1s, Health access, Health apps, Health at home, Health benefits, Health care industry, Health citizenship, Health Consumers, Health disparities, Health Economics, Health ecosystem, Health equity, Health insurance, Health IT, Health literacy, Health Plans, Health policy, Health politics, Health social networks, Healthcare access, Heart disease, Heart health, Home care, Home economics, Home health, Hospital to home, Hospitals, Housing and health, Literacy, Loneliness, Love and health, Medicaid, Medical bills, Medical innovation, Medical technology, Medicare, Medicines, Nutrition, Obesity, Out of pocket costs, Participatory health, Patient engagement, Patient experience, Pharmaceutical, Pharmacy, Popular culture and health, Prescription drugs, Public health, Remote health monitoring, Retail health, Risk management, Safety net and health, SDoH, Self-care, Sensors and health, Shopping and health, Sleep, Social determinants of health, Social health, Social isolation, Social networks and health, Social security, Telehealth, Transparency, Uninsured, User experience UX, Virtual health, War and health, Wearable tech, Wearables, Weight loss, Workplace benefits

As Weight Watchers prepares to initiate bankruptcy proceedings, I file the news event under “thinking the unthinkable.”                     “Thinking about the unthinkable” is what Herman Kahn, a father of scenario planning, asked us to do when he pioneered the process. In this book, for Kahn, “the unthinkable” was thermonuclear war, and the year was 1962. The book was tag-lined as “must reading for an informed public” and in it, Kahn             I’ve been drawn back to this book lately because of a more intense workflow using

 

How BioPharma Can Improve Consumers’ Experience and Health

Patients as health consumers now know what “good” looks like in their digital experiences. People have tasted the convenience and respect they feel from well-designed, streamlined omnichannel retail experiences, and they now expect this from health care — specifically supported by the pharmaceutical companies who manufacture the medicines they use in managing chronic conditions, we learn in ixlayer ixInsights 2025: Pharma’s Role in Improving the Health Experience from ixlayer and Ipaos.             The patient-focused report gets specific about people dealing with asthma, COPD, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, psoriasis, and atopic dermatitis with a lens on

 

One Way to Improve U.S. Healthcare, Lower Costs and Drive Outcomes? “Unvendor,” Asserts Dr. Harm Scherpbier in His New Book

Health information technology professionals charged with selecting, implementing, updating, and paying for health IT in hospital and care delivery settings are essentially the first-line “consumers” of health IT – specifically, electronic health records. But these health IT leaders feel far from empowered and choiceful as consumers in todays EHR vendor “monoculture,” Harm Scherpbier, MD, explains in his book, Unvendor.                   I spent time with Harm to discuss the book, its backstory, and what he hopes to accomplish by raising the issue of single-vendor health IT and how clinicians, health IT staff, and