The Rise of Consumer-Centric Healthcare

Discussions about consumer-centered healthcare are everywhere these days, from the Harvard Business Review to the World Economic Forum in Davos, and from the TED Institute to professional journals and websites.

 “The future of healthcare in the U.S. will be one in which an engaged, empowered and educated consumer is at the center of the system,” says U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell. This means that patients – customers – will have more control of their healthcare decision-making and be able to realize more satisfying experiences.

 At Davos, Novartis CEO Joseph Jimenez’s positive take was that technological innovation has the potential to be truly game-changing for patients, facilitating patient compliance with treatment and allowing patients and physicians to better manage chronic disease, and reductions in adverse events.

 At a TED-curated event for BCG, Karalee Close, global leader of Digital, Big Data and Advanced Analytics in Healthcare for BCG, said she believes that using a mobile app to check glucose levels, sending selfies to receive diagnoses, and receiving text reminders to take pills is what the future of healthcare will look like. She feels that’s a good thing, considering that medical mistakes are a leading cause of death in the US. Close says that a closer marriage of technology, big data, and healthcare can improve today’s system - especially when it comes to mitigating human error.

 From the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the future of healthcare is simple: build a place online and on-the-go, as well as in the physical environment, where people can learn, engage, and easily transact their healthcare. All the information a consumer needs to know about their healthcare, including personal health records, preferences and lab results, as well as actionable tasks like appointment scheduling, bill-pay, and clinical questionnaires, should be available to them anywhere, anytime, from any device

 For me, all this boils down to one thing. Whether you are talking about enhanced provider-patient interaction, access to big data, continuous glucose monitoring or quality reporting, you are really talking about improved communication between people, physicians, payers and organizations. Or as I like to say, Communication is the Cure™.