The Patients Speak!

Andrea J. Simon writing at HospitalImpact.org:  "What Do Patients Really Want and Do Docs Care?"

With high deductibles, consumers all expressed how they are less likely to go to the doctor unless they are really sick. A number of them spoke about preempting the healthcare system altogether and instead, using their personal network to speak with friends who are nurses about their situation or that of their child before going to the physicians.

Most interesting was the degree to which these consumers--all of whom were between 25 and 54 in age--were anxious to get mobile applications that they could use themselves to help diagnose and manage their conditions. DIY healthcare is going to be very hot if we can get it right.

11:50 AM

Wearable technology market to exceed $6B by 2016

Computerworld - Demand for real-time data, including personal health information, is driving the market for wearable, wireless devices that will grow from 14 million items this year to as many as 171 million in 2016.

In four years, the market for wearable wireless devices is expected to achieve minimum revenues of $6 billion, according to new research from IMS Research, a subsidiary of IHS.

8:55 AM

Graying America Gets Wired

...healthcare costs get slashed. Who says old folks don't use computers? From Reuters: "Graying America gets wired to cut healthcare costs"

...Marilyn Yeats, 79, is suffering from congestive heart failure and uses a personal healthcare computer, Connect, provided by the health insurer Humana Corp. She calls it My Little Nurse for helping her keep track of her blood pressure, weight, temperature and whether she is taking her medicines on time.

"It rings me up every morning at 10 am, and there I am, on my machine measuring myself, and if I have gained weight, it asks me additional questions. I say it is like having your own nurse come into your house every day." said the Naples, Fla., resident.

If these programs succeed, home technologies could help slash billions of dollars from the nation's $2.6 trillion healthcare bill by keeping elderly people in their homes for longer and out of expensive hospitals and nursing homes.

Again, pay attention to the growing number of ideas (and funding) devoted to the idea that a hospital admission is a process FAILURE somewhere else in the system. Those ideas and all that venture capital are targeted squarely at hospitals' threadbare business model.

It's a trend that can't be stopped (and shouldn't be if we're hoping to avoid national  bankruptcy.) The only question, really, is when we'll stop saying "Old folks don't use computers..." and say instead "Old folks are like the rest of us in using what adds value to their lives."

And if we view them as computer-phobic Luddites, well, shame on us for lacking the vision and innovative drive to deliver value to those who need it most.

2:54 PM