A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk with an innovative company about a new product. I make it a policy not to endorse any particular company or product on this blog, so this is not an endorsement. Rather it is a fascinating story that tells us lots about human nature and gives us clues on how we should design healthcare programs, apps, etc. as we move into the world of patient engagement and accountability. And we are moving there. Whether your focus is achieving meaningful use of your EMR (increasingly we’re going to be graded on how we engage our patients in this regard), the journey to becoming an Accountable Care Organization (as we enter an environment where we’re compensated for quality and efficiency, patient engagement becomes key) or simply that you realize that we don’t have enough healthcare providers to take care of all those folks who need it (in this case, patient engagement becomes a tool to give patients the opportunity to be their own providers, taking work off of our beleaguered primary care workforce), patient engagement is all the rage.
Right out of the gate, we health care providers have a big hill to climb. We are the ones who remind you that you are sick. Who wants to be engaged with that? Once patients get into the mindset of being sick, the context becomes pain, suffering, inconvenience, depression, time out of work, rehabilitation, and on and on. It’s no wonder that patients don’t engage much (other than the occasional masochist among us). And the conversation immediately gravitates to whether insurance will pay or not. We’ve observed patients in our connected health programs who are happy to go to the sporting goods store to fork over their own money for a heart rate monitor so they can watch their heart rate during a work out, but baulk at paying for a blood pressure monitor to be part of a hypertension program. After all, fitness is your own business, but when we’re talking about sickness your insurer owes you ….