"You better start swimmin, or you'll sink like a stone; for the times they are a-changin"
-Bob Dylan
Managed care got us through the ’90s.
Then, Consumer Driven Health Plans emerged to engage employees directly by empowering them through
new benefit designs to take a decisive role in where, when, and from whom they
receive care. Now, in 2008 we’re seeing the evolution of a next generation health
care model – Health 3.0.
Are you ready for:
- patients able to store their personal health record in an online “safe deposit box”
- local physicians and hospitals managing integrated care systems designed around inter-generational, multi-site (even global) services
- customers using Internet social networks to collaborate on a cancer treatment vetted by fellow patients, or collaborating with complete strangers on rating physicians in their community
- innovations
crisscrossing genomics, proteomics,
nanotechnology, cosmeceuticals and nutraceuticals
Health 3.0
is a term coined by Jeff Gruen, MD, Senior Advisor at Revolution Health, one of
the leading Health 3.0 companies. It describes
the newest wave in health care structural change. Three areas of innovation characterize
Health 3.0—information technology grounded in sweeping web-based connectivity,
personalized health care delivered in clinically relevant settings, and insurance
financing mechanisms embracing consumer-centric business models.
Digital Customers
Consumers
have long been using the internet to shop for an array of products, from books
and music to TVs and clothing. Over the last few years, consumers routinely
turn to the Web to research and buy health insurance products on websites
called Tonik, Insurance Store, Vimo and eHealthInsurance.
Over 150
million people used the web last year to gather information and make purchase
decisions involving their health care. They’re turning to websites, both
commercial and social networking, to manage their medical and financial
decisions:
- prepare for doctor’s visits
- investigate diagnoses and treatments
- sign-on to wellness “frequent flyer-type” healthy reward programs
- explore medical tourism care alternatives
- manage Health Savings Account budgeting
- comparison shop for vaccinations, medications and medical equipment
- evaluate
and coordinate in-home caregiver options
And if
that’s not proof enough, check-out the new buzz words starting to show-up in health
care glossaries – googlediagnosing, personal health simulation, cyberchondria, body
hacking, biocitizens, boomer future proofing and theragnostics.
The vast wealth
of health care intelligence is turning the digital consumer into a new type of
customer—one which many organizations are not prepared to serve. Companies are
not yet equipped to effectively manage these enlightened and empowered
customers. In order to adapt and survive in this changing
technological landscape, health companies (insurers and providers alike), need
to find ways to maximize web tools, video content and mobile technology to
communicate with, and service digital customers.
In a recent
article I addressed the marketing and sales challenges of this changing world. One
in which the consumer’s healthcare comfort zone is being squeezed and “new
media” is quickly becoming status quo - http://www.lindsayresnick.com/Articles/Marketing2008.pdf.
Health 3.0 is the convergence of innovative
medical delivery models, a retail-based health insurance purchasing landscape,
value-based financing schemes and most importantly, the digital customer—an
activated consumer with any time / any
place / any device connectivity accessing an almost bottomless information
reservoir, with the confidence and savvy to put it to use.