Are you perceived as an engaged patient by your health care provider?

I thought this was an interesting article on LinkedIn. How do you think medical professionals view the typical chronic lyme patient? I suspect they see us as misinformed and/or overwhelmed and like we aren't smart enough to find our way/ figure out how to use the majority of info they might provide. Regardless, I'd be interested to hear what you think about how patients are categorized/ marketed to and if you think you can use this info to make it easier to communicate with your health care professional?

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140728145827-4927300-apple-health-and-the-low-hanging-fruit-in-healthcare-innovation?trk=mp-details-rc

Apple HealthKit and the Low Hanging Fruit in Healthcare Innovation

July 28, 2014

In my last post I talked about the different dimensions of innovation, and that there is some low hanging fruit in the healthcare system that could be realized by applying behavioral knowledge to create new value propositions. Currently there is a lot of talk about Apple Health and its potential to revolutionize healthcare. Whether or not it will be revolutionary can be debated, but I’ll describe how I think that Health (or other software platforms like it) can be used to create new value propositions based on behavioral knowledge.

The Current State

Currently, ineffective self-care of chronic disease is one of the biggest drivers of costs in the healthcare system. It’s also one of the most difficult to tackle since it’s largely dependent upon patient behavior - (specifically, day-to-day decisions like what to eat, how much, consistently taking meds, when and how much to exercise, etc all have a huge impact on disease management). Over the years I’ve done many deep dives to decipher the deep motivations that drive patient behavior, and align offerings such that they satisfy these motivations. In thinking about chronic disease management, I would put these drivers into two general categories: How much knowledge a patient has about their disease, and how actively engaged they are in managing it, as shown in the graphic above:

The high costs and poor health outcomes we currently see would lead us to believe that most people have no knowledge of that to do and take little action to care for their health, as seen in the lower left quadrant of the graphic. Ideally, we would like to move patients with chronic diseases to the upper right quadrant; with a high degree of knowledge of their disease, and actively engaged in caring for themselves.

The Behavioral Problem

On the surface, it would then make sense to solve these issues by providing more data, and education to patients – and as such, we have seen the proliferation of wearable health and wellness devices that attempt to do just that. However, if we look beneath the surface the story becomes a little more complicated, and we can start to see how providing more data can exacerbate the problem it is intended to solve. We see this manifested in the two behavioral types that I’ll call the Misinformed and the Overwhelmed.

The Misinformed

The Misinformed group is represented in the graphic as people who are actively engaged and motivated, but they have poor or wrong information and don’t always take the right actions. They are motivated to take action, and since they are not medical professionals, they end up confused with the abundance of information they can find on the internet, through friends, and other sources. There are few resources available to help them to sort through what is relevant for them vs others. Ideally this type of support would come from a medical professional, but it is impractical for physicians to spend this kind of time. Classes offered in a clinic setting can help, but these people are motivated to work toward individualizing what works for them. As such, they need a way to personalize day-to-day management with oversight and coaching from a healthcare professional. These people are taking actions – but they are often taking the wrong actions, and the end result is the same as, or sometimes worse than, taking no action.

The Overwhelmed

The Overwhelmed group is represented in the graphic as people who have good knowledge of their disease, but they have so much data they become overwhelmed and avoid it altogether. This can take the form of denial, or minimizing the number of decisions they make to the point that the oversimplification results in less effective actions. These people may even be motivated enough to try new devices, but after receiving just too much data they give up because they can’t spend their life trying to figure out what it all means. As with the Misinformed, they are often not medical professionals, and they need simple solutions that help them to cut through the clutter to quickly figure out what to do. With too much information they end up taking shortcuts to fit into their daily routine – often taking insufficient actions, and again the end result is often the same as taking no action or the wrong action.


The Opportunity

It’s with these groups that I believe the low hanging fruit exists, and there are many who would argue that affecting this type of behavior change is far from low hanging fruit. I agree that it is difficult, but it presents an opportunity to create solutions that are more meaningful than creating more devices to collect more data that confuses or overwhelms people. This is where I think platforms such as HealthKit, Google Fit, and others, can add the greatest value. As I’ve seen it described, the platform will collect data in a standardized format. If it lives up to this promise, a platform like this will enable three things:

  • It will provide a common platform to collect data from disparate sources.
  • It will enable those who previously could not access this data to build new tools and offerings to make sense of it. This is especially important in chronic disease management, where the integration of multiple types of information is necessary to get a full picture of what is going on day-to-day.
  • Finally, it will enable patients and their healthcare providers with common communication platforms to aid in teaching and customizing of treatment decisions, making nurses and technicians more effective and easing the burden on time stretched physicians. These new tools can serve as vehicles to foster more positive, effective engagement. This is probably the most important benefit to enable a more efficient, effective healthcare environment.

Platforms such as Apple Health will not likely revolutionize healthcare single-handedly. However, they can provide powerful access to people with the expertise to make sense of all the data available, so it can be effectively used by those who need it. That will be the real revolution.

More Information:

Ellen Di Resta develops global business opportunities requiring innovation initiatives across cultures, continents, and channels; building multidisciplinary design teams to translate market insights into successful new products and services. She has integrated new product innovation tools and skills into traditional development processes, and introduced new methods to promote innovative thinking in organizations.

Her current work in the healthcare industry involves defining consumer experiences in healthcare informatics and wearable technology to improve chronic disease management; identifying disruptive business opportunities in the new healthcare landscape; creating new experiences for Patients, Payers, and Healthcare Providers.

Her work has realized impressive market success for global brands such as Pampers (mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The Boston Globe) , InSinkErator, TetraPak (on the go and energy drink packages), Center for Creative Leadership, and other B2B and B2C companies.

www.ellendiresta.com

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Hi Lost Girl,

This is some impressive information you shared with us. Ellen Di Resta has some fantastic ideas, and hopefully she is powerful enough to put some in motion.

As you know, I do not suffer from Lyme, but various autoimmune diseases, but getting diagnosis and care for those are not easy either, years of my life were wasted waiting to see one specialist after another, only to be told such ridiculous things such as I was 'stiff' as a diagnosis after months of extensive and expensive tests!

I can only offer my sincere concern for all of you who struggle for diagnosis and care of such an all encompassing disease. Hopefully the medical community will get their act together, and Ms Di Resta can bring about some changes for the better.

Thanks so much for sharing this with us!

Wishing you well,

SK

Great info! Looking through all these options, I think my health care provider sees me as overwhelmed. I have a lot of info, but maybe too much, and as a result might avoid certain things such as following protocol to a T. I also think that outside these constructs practitioners do see chronically ill patients as weak...as part of the article mentioned that we do not choose too be better by strictly following doctors orders. I have about half a dozen doctors and specialists, all of whom give different advice. So what kind of patient and I supposed to be? Do I placate the person I am seeing at the time? I think honesty is the most important thing so no matter who I am seeing my stories are consistent regardless of how I think they might perceive me.

I got so carried away, I never answered your question. I would say I was totally in the dark in the beginning but through the bumps and hard knocks along the way, have become well informed.

I have learned an incredible amount of valuable information on dozens of chronic illnesses here on Ben's Friends, not only from looking up info for others, or finding discussion topics, but very good info from our members!

I'm in the same boat, the directions I get from different physicians don't always match up, and they don't collaborate with each other, so we can seem non-compliant and dis-engaged by all sides. I think my role, as a patient, shouldn't be dismissed - if you want me to do my part, then treat me like a partner because if I don't take action (or the appropriate action), then all you (doc) do, is for naught.

Thanks SK, I think we all learn along the way! I often wonder how we're perceived because I think that impacts the kind of information / treatment we're given.

Hi LostGirl,

With many records being electronic now I am shocked at how little doctors communicate. I just saw a pain specialist a few weeks ago and I asked them if they would send my record to my GP the referring physician and they said only if she calls and requests it. I think it is dangerous that they don't link their systems- what if each specialist prescribed medications but doesn't know what the other doctors are doing- then we the patient are possibly put in a position to take conflicting meds. How are we supposed to know what is right? I also like your point that we can seem non-compliant or disengaged. My GP accused my of 'doing nothing to help myself' which is absolutely ridiculous. I was attending physical therapy and had appointments with different specialists every week all in an effort to help myself.