With Meaningful Use stage 2 looming and healthcare payment
models gravitating toward value and outcomes, mobile health and healthcare
social media are all the rage. So, I figured I would jump on the bandwagon.
Everyone knows patient-centric healthcare apps and websites
have been around for a while. Sites like WebMD, Patients Like Me and others have been in use for years and
web-based personal health record abound. Still, patients are seemingly not as
engaged as they could be. Why?
Last year, I decided that I wanted to drop a few pounds. To guide
that venture, I downloaded an app called My Fitness Pal. It was nice and easy
because I could log calories by scanning bar codes on food. I used it
religiously for a couple of months, lost some weight and haven’t touched it
since. Why?
When I or someone I care about is sick, I might do a web
search to find out about the condition or ways toward relief – usually finding
what I am looking for through someone like the Mayo Clinic and confident that
their information is trustworthy… but that interest is over in a flash. Why?
Clearly, I am not an engaged patient. The reason is simple.
I am not sick all the time. In general, I am quite healthy, but for the
occasional head cold. At the same time, I have known people with more serious
conditions like diabetes, cancers, etc. The funny thing is, those people are
not sick all the time either or at least they don’t want sick all the time.
Even though I work in healthcare and am immersed in
healthcare daily, I don’t find personal healthcare interesting. It is terrible
to say, I cannot even recall the last time I had a physical. It’s not that I
have any aversion to taking care of my health, but amid work and day-to-day
life things – I just don’t think about it. As for doctors, well… to be honest,
I have seen the business side of healthcare so long that I cannot be engaged
with someone when I know he/she is not engaged with me.
All these healthcare apps and websites are great when I need
them, but when I don’t – I forget them. Initially one might say that’s ok. If
you don’t need it, don’t use it. That, however, is wrong. Prevention and a
healthy life style are key to controlling healthcare costs.
So, if people like me are not interested enough to seek
information – the powers that be should send it to me, right? Wrong! Currently,
my email inbox has 8,498 unread emails (no, I am not exaggerating). I scan
through the senders, read very few subject lines, open even fewer emails, and
ignore the rest. My email is a black hole for junk mail (haha spammers, I just
ignore you!).
Twitter, perhaps? The messages are delivered in a timely
manner. They are short..perfect, right? I don’t think so. I don’t read about
90% of what I follow on twitter. Now, I do scan the tweets from just about
everyone I follow (from time to time), but not frequently enough to really
learn much. Further, a lot of it just isn’t pertinent to me – so I ignore a
lot. Heaven knows what I overlook in my rush to get through it all.
I have mentioned before that I am a HIT product
manager. As a product manager, I love
challenges like I described above. So, let’s dissect my disinterestedness
product manager style and see if we can find a solution that will bring patient
engagement to fruition for unengaged patients like me.
1.
I am not always sick and I have other important
things to attend that often supplant the importance of my own healthcare
2.
I am bombarded with messages that I don’t have
time or inclination to read
3.
I am willing to seek health information when I
want it
4.
I am only interested in things that I consider
important to me or those I love
5.
I do not believe that my healthcare is any more
important to my doctor than it is to me (and that is not very much)
Based on this, I see that the way to engage me is as
follows.
1.
Combine healthcare information in a meaningful
and organized way with my other interests.
2.
Don’t overwhelm me
3.
Make the information specific to my interests,
but give me the option to search for other things when I want it
4.
Deliver it to me but not by email
5.
Make me believe healthcare providers actually
care about me
Perhaps now it seems we are no further than we were before.
Isn’t this what most sites are already doing? No, I don’t think so. For most
things, I have to go to them or if the site sends me things it is irrelevant,
untimely, or just too much. So, I go back to the age old principal in
innovation– KISS (keep it simple stupid).
There are two non-health related technologies that are
simple and from which I think healthcare could take some lessons.
First, think about text messaging. It is simple. People,
like me, read text messages. I don’t have time for yet another overdone website.
Texting could be a great way to remind patients about preventative visits,
reminders to follow up, reminders to fill medication, or simply how are you
feeling messages that build the patient-doctor relationship. Clearly, there are
some doing this already – but why so few? The right HIT vendor could automate
texts creating ‘personalized’ messages based on criteria pulled from the doctor’s
EMR.
Another fabulous idea is Pinterest. It exceedingly well
organized collage of the often disconnected things I like – from architecture
to healthcare. Like I said above, people are not sick all the time. A site like
Pinterest has the potential for making healthcare part of the other things I do
rather than something I have to seek out. While pictures may not be the best
way to do it – the basic idea of ‘boards’ or organized groupings of my diverse
interests is simple yet brilliant.
I think the basic idea here is that in order to successfully
improve patient engagement through mobile technology, HIT providers are going
to have to find ways to include healthcare in patient’s other interests.
Further, simplicity rules. No one has the time or inclination to be overwhelmed
by more information that is already required of us. Patients don’t have time to
log health stats in disconnected locations. Lastly, patient engagement will only come when
patients feel that our clinicians are engaged with us in return – that we patients
are more than dollar signs.
