When Healthcare was Two Words

I have just returned from the NG Health Summit in Austin where I was able to speak with some leading healthcare executives about ObamaCare and how they are leveraging technology to not only meet the requirements of ACA, but also get ahead of the curve and their competitors.

In our discussions, we kept returning to the focus of their work and what strategy is best to continue their health systems’ leadership and expand market share. The bottom line was, of course, putting the patient first as our consumer and customer, and how best to do that through effective communications with current patients, future patients and former patients. The goal to provide the most positive consumer experience possible with ease of access to care and their care providers.

Of course, being in the communications technology and consumer engagement business, we spoke about how healthcare is so far behind the retail consumer industries such as banks, airlines and product companies. Many of the executives were physicians who had moved into management roles with responsibility to combine their organization’s health services with the technology to enable them to achieve their corporate mission to care for patients. So, I illustrated for them how truly slow healthcare is in adopting new technologies through my doctoral research project from 1998–2001. In a nutshell, I showed them how $6 billion in 1999 Primary Care Provider (PCP) dollars would have moved to those doctors that adopted internet based communication tools (for things like scheduling and emailing with patients online) FROM those doctors that did not communicate with their patients online.

In 2015 dollars, that would equate to over $10 Billion in Primary Care dollars! Still today, we have very few PCPs with the interest in emailing with their patients and they definitely do not want to open up their schedules to allow patients to schedule their own visits online. Its been 15 years of the internet age and we in healthcare are still not getting it!

Bill Bunting is of similar opinion today in his article, "Shift - or get out of the way of the patient..." where he uses the old Kool-aid adage to illustrate his point of healthcare's need to move from provider-centered to patient-focused. That article image of Kool-Aid reminded me of the old TV Show - Space: 1999 from the 70's where they were living in a community on the Moon - pretty Sci Fi for the time.

Well, our patient service mindshift hasn't happened yet, just like we don't have a colony on the Moon after having been there 30 years ago, we don't have providers using technology from the 20th Century.

The consensus from the Summit was that the larger health systems do get it and they recognize that adopting the most advanced consumer engagement technologies is required for them to provide the best care for their patients, establish efficient and effective communication channels between providers and patients, and to build upon their brand!

Through this link, I have provided my dissertation research for your review. You will find that much of it is still quite relevant to reference and understand. Even the glossary published with the report still is important to learn as we repeat the days of managed care in our efforts to create value in the era of Accountable Care and what still remains revolutionary in healthcare... “eHealth Consumerism.”

Let me know your thoughts, DrJ

Dr. Gordon Jones is the Strategic Vice President for West Corporation, a leading consumer communications and engagement company. He is also a serial entrepreneur and health information technologist with a doctorate in health administration. His creative work has been born through his innovation development companies, Curating Health, Birddog.Ventures, and Createyourself.com, where he facilitates diverse teams of collaborators whose core business is focused on helping people and companies incubate new ideas and developing creative ways to get those ideas to market. Follow him above, and Connect with him on LinkedIn