Patient advocates are awesome. But that patient advocacy has become an industry–and that procuring one is among the first pieces of advice upon admission to a hospital–is a flat-out indictment of a healthcare system’s misplaced priorities.
Month: December 2010
For healthcare providers, the strategy should be less about creating “new” health content (though the local perspective has its place), and more about how to connect patients and physicians with tools that utilize existing content to help people live healthier lives.
illustration via PwC health’s industry issues 2011
And two people believing is the start of a congregation. You build a congregation of believers and you try to build a cathedral. Sometimes, it’s just a church. Sometimes, it’s a chapel. Folks who don’t build churches will try to tell you how you’re doing it wrong, even as your steeple breaks the clouds. Don’t listen.
In a logical, but brilliant, extension of available technology, Hyundai has made the owner’s manual of its new Equus an app. In order to allow all new owners the ability to access the app, the automaker is giving away an iPad with each car purchase. I’ve played with the app, it is very cool.
Just think: when the price of a new tablet computer falls to the $250-300 range, could it become economically feasible (think readmits) for a hospital to give away a tablet computer with an “owner’s manual” to a discharged patient? The online interactivity opportunities are truly striking, but what is neat here is the opportunity to customize at-home care instructions in an engaging, interactive, new-technology manner.
For every generation (18+) finding health information is the third-most popular online activity, behind email and search and ahead of social network sites. (Pew)
Too much creativity, not enough (common) sense
I like that they pushed the line, they just might have selected the wrong tool to push with; The New York Times:
On its face, it seemed reasonable enough: a bone marrow registry sending recruiters to malls, ballparks and other busy sites to enlist potential donors.
That seems rather vanilla. Here comes the “but:”
But the recruiters were actually flirtatious models in heels, short skirts and lab coats, law enforcement officials say, asking passers-by for DNA swabs without mentioning the price of the seemingly simple procedure.
Wait for it…
And the registry, Caitlin Raymond International, was paying up to $60,000 a week for the models while billing insurance companies up to $4,300 per test.
Ayyy. They’re non-profit, to boot.
Google’s Body Browser is neat.
Wired re-designed the lab report–it’s design exposés like this that fluster me when I think about why healthcare doesn’t get design.
Who represented us in healthcare reform?
Hospitals had the American Hospital Association. Doctors had the American Medical Association. Big Pharma had the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America. More than 1,750 companies and organizations hired about 4,525 lobbyists — eight for each member of Congress — to influence…
Hi, I'm Drew Weilage. 