The Experts below are selected from a list of 195 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
David B. Nash - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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2014: the year of the Healthcare Consumer.
American health & drug benefits, 2014Co-Authors: David B. NashAbstract:Undoubtedly, 2014 will be characterized by the ascendency of a new type of Healthcare Consumer. “Consumers are no longer passive patients, but rather engaged—and more discerning—customers wielding new tools and better information to comparison shop. The year ahead will be marked by how well the Healthcare industry responds to this shift. Organizations that fail to adapt will risk declining revenues as Consumers turn elsewhere to have their health needs met.”1 Now that we are at the midpoint of 2014, it is interesting to take a look at how expert predictions are playing out in the marketplace. With a little help from my friends at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and their report from the Health Research Institute entitled “Top Health Industry Issues of 2014: A New Health Economy Takes Shape,”1 let us take a look at the scorecard of predictions for 2014 as they relate to Healthcare Consumerism: the rise of the retail marketplace, the new role for employer private exchanges, price transparency, and how new technology may help put all of this together. I am no stranger to the retail Healthcare marketplace, having been a board member of the iTrax Corporation, which was eventually sold to Walgreens. And Walgreens combined iTrax with other resources to develop what is now known as Take Care Health Systems—the pharmacy giant's retail Healthcare arm. According to our colleagues at PwC and their detailed Consumer survey, nearly 1 in 4 persons indicated that either they or someone in their household had sought Healthcare treatment in a retail clinic in 2013.1 Of those who sought care, a whopping 73% said they would go back to a retail clinic again in the future.1 Clearly, the predicted “retailization” of Healthcare is progressing, as Walgreens and CVS Caremark continue to expand their product and service offerings inside their stores to deliver medical management of chronic conditions. “Walgreens, the country's largest drugstore chain, announced last week that its 330-plus Take Care Clinics, will be the first retail store clinics to both diagnose and manage chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.”2 Not to be outdone, CVS Caremark is now accepting Medicaid in its 28 South Carolina retail clinics. The company reportedly has more than 800 clinic locations across the United States,3 and continues to rapidly expand this aspect of its business. Consumers want care when they want it—and it better be convenient, and at an appropriate price point. After a rocky rollout of the exchanges, there are many more insured Americans now that the federal and state exchanges have completed their initial open enrollment. The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has led to corresponding changes in the insurance market. As PwC predicted, there has been rapid growth in private exchanges, which are “reshaping the employer benefits landscape, drawing high profile converts, such as IBM and Sears.”1 These private exchanges offer a similar platform as those created by the ACA. Because more than 156 million Americans receive health insurance through the workplace, private exchanges have a bright future. “At its core, a private exchange is an online marketplace for employers to send active or retired employees who shop for medical and other benefits with an employer contribution.”1 Think of these private exchanges as very narrow networks, with high-quality providers linked via digital communication and personalized information for the employee. “While employers are pushing private exchanges, a large number of diverse organizations, including brokerage firms, consulting companies, managed care insurers and high technology companies are also in the mix.”1 While the move toward retail clinics and private exchanges is certainly important, none of this would be possible without price transparency. I completely agree with PwC that this time it's a different story. “As families pay more for their care, the demand for transparency—and lower costs—has risen.”1 There are key implications of greater price transparency. As employers look to reduce costs, they will play “hardball” with provider organizations. Businesses will make price transparency a primary factor in negotiating with insurers and provider organizations. Perhaps the private exchanges will fuel this push toward price transparency. Citing a report from the Los Angeles Times, the PwC report discusses a very interesting development in California. “When the health benefits plan for California's retirees [CalPERS] said it would pay no more than $30,000 for hip or knee replacements, its members changed how they selected providers and medical treatment…. Providers responded by dropping their prices to compete. CalPERS saved $5.5 million in the program's first two years and the price of the procedure dropped 26% or about $9,000.”4 Price transparency drove providers to change in a dramatic way. Can we put retail clinics, private exchanges, and price transparency together on our mobile devices? As we move through 2014, I envision a future in which providers integrate patient data visible in their electronic health records with the information that patients share with them via social media. I also see patients having complete and unfettered access to their own medical records online. “Social mobile analytics and cloud technologies are the underpinnings for completing new business models in which organizations will be paid based on value rather than volume.”1 It only makes sense that providers, who will be under increasing pressure to keep costs down, would promote technology that helps patients manage health outside of the hospital setting. In other words, “today just 27% of physicians encourage patients to use mobile health applications, even though 59% of physicians and insurers believe that the widespread adoption of mobile health is inevitable in the near future.”1 Finally, as Consumers assume more financial risks for their own Healthcare, especially via high-deductible health plans, they may be more willing to pay for those social mobile analytics and cloud technologies that will enable them to manage their own health. This is the best example of a digital marketplace coming to Healthcare, fueled by price transparency and Consumer engagement. So far, 2014 is most certainly playing out to be the year of the Healthcare Consumer. What are your predictions for the year ahead? I am confident and excited that as we move forward, our work, and all the articles published in American Health & Drug Benefits, will continue to reflect new developments in our nearly $3-trillion-a-year Healthcare economy. As always, I am interested in your views, and you can reach me at ude.nosreffej@hsan.divad.
Tracey Walker - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Are Virtual Agents Ready to Interact with Your Healthcare Consumers
Healthcare executive, 2018Co-Authors: Tracey WalkerAbstract:Eye-opening research by NTT DATA Services sheds light on Healthcare Consumer satisfaction with virtual versus human agents.
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Actionable information draws Consumers
Healthcare executive, 2008Co-Authors: Tracey WalkerAbstract:Consumers want information that's personalized and useful to their specific health problem, according to a recent Healthcare Consumer study from Deloitte.
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Proactive leaders thrive in competitive landscape
Healthcare executive, 2006Co-Authors: Tracey WalkerAbstract:The rise of the Healthcare Consumer, pay for performance and the focus on care management and prevention will not just be blips on managed care executives' radar screens this year. They will not only need to address these issues, but build a framework around them for long-term sustainability, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Toby Gosden - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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priority setting in health care should we ask the tax payer
BMJ, 2000Co-Authors: David J Torgerson, Toby GosdenAbstract:It is popular and politically correct to involve the public in Healthcare priority setting. But it may not necessarily be a good thing to involve it in rationing decisions. It is almost an article of faith among many United Kingdom health economists that a publicly funded and provided Healthcare service is more efficient than if left to the free market. Several reasons sustain this view. An important one is the low level of knowledge by the potential Healthcare Consumer of the relative utility of a Healthcare service with respect to its price—or in economists' jargon—informational asymmetry. Consumers tend to choose the most expensive procedure they can afford on the basis that the most costly will be the best. Hence, in the context of hip replacements Consumers may choose the most expensive prosthesis in the belief that this must be better. > Rationing is painful, complicated, and difficult This phenomenon partly explains the reason that the United …
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personal views priority setting in health care should we ask the tax payer
BMJ, 2000Co-Authors: David J Torgerson, Toby GosdenAbstract:It is popular and politically correct to involve the public in Healthcare priority setting. But it may not necessarily be a good thing to involve it in rationing decisions. It is almost an article of faith among many United Kingdom health economists that a publicly funded and provided Healthcare service is more efficient than if left to the free market. Several reasons sustain this view. An important one is the low level of knowledge by the potential Healthcare Consumer of the relative utility of a Healthcare service with respect to its price—or in economists' jargon—informational asymmetry. Consumers tend to choose the most expensive procedure they can afford on the basis that the most costly will be the best. Hence, in the context of hip replacements Consumers may choose the most expensive prosthesis in the belief that this must be better. Rationing is painful, complicated, and difficult This phenomenon partly explains the reason that the United States spends a much greater proportion of its gross national product on health care compared with other, less market oriented, Healthcare systems. For example, public pressure has made 10 US states pass legal requirements that autologous stem cell support for patients with breast cancer should be available if requested. This is despite it being more expensive than conventional treatment and no more effective. By taking the Healthcare purchasing decisions away from the Consumer the NHS improves efficiency by allowing only those people with sufficient knowledge of health care to purchase effective (and occasionally cost effective) medicine on behalf of patients. Thus, doctors act for patients by assessing the therapeutic options available and advising the patient which is best. While the NHS may remedy some of the market's inefficiencies it is not without its problems. One weakness, which ascertaining the public's view seeks to address, is that provision of Healthcare type is divorced from what people actually want. Thus, for example, doctors may not wish to provide a service so women can have home births because it is easier for them to let women have their babies in a maternity hospital. Similarly, the public may wish local general practitioners to provide unproven complementary medicine rather than spend their budgets on the cost effective vaccination of older people against influenza. While the NHS is accountable to the public through the electoral system this accountability is very muted as people rarely cast their votes solely on the basis of one issue. The belief that ascertaining the public's view on resource allocation is efficient within a publicly funded service must rest on the following assumptions. Firstly, the public is incapable at an individual level to make efficient choices. Secondly, it possesses sufficient knowledge to ration health care on a population basis. The first assumption must hold otherwise the best way to make the health service responsive to the Consumer is to abandon public Healthcare provision and meet the equity objectives of the NHS by giving transfer payments (either in the form of cash payments or vouchers) to the poor and let people decide which health care to buy. Only if both these assumptions hold will it be possible by eliciting public perceptions to produce a more efficient Healthcare service. On the other hand, if you assume that if people who cannot make an efficient choice about their own health care are also unlikely to be able to ration Healthcare delivery to the population efficiently then we may end up with the worst of both worlds. Assuming the views of the public are actually used rather than seen to be used then the Healthcare system could end up being as inefficient as one in the private market but without the relative freedom of choice a market offers. Thus, resources could be diverted into popular medical procedures that at best might be effective, but horrendously expensive, and at worst expensive and harmful. Rationing is painful, complicated, and difficult. Involving the public may result in inefficient use of resources. From the published surveys of public opinion on priority setting the results tend to be fairly predictable. Questionnaire surveys show that smokers, drug users, heavy drinkers, and the elderly should receive lower priority than other people. Clearly, if “local voices” give the wrong answer Healthcare managers can ignore them. If this is the case the only inefficiency will be the money that is wasted soliciting public opinion.
Qimei Chen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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culture and medical decision making Healthcare Consumer perspectives in japan and the united states
Health Psychology, 2015Co-Authors: Dana L Alden, John M Friend, Angela Y Lee, Marieke De Vries, Ryosuke Osawa, Qimei ChenAbstract:Objective Two studies identified core value influences on medical decision-making processes across and within cultures. Methods In Study 1, Japanese and American adults reported desired levels of medical decision-making influence across conditions that varied in seriousness. Cultural antecedents (interdependence, independence, and power distance) were also measured. In Study 2, American adults reviewed a colorectal cancer screening decision aid. Decision preparedness was measured along with interdependence, independence, and desire for medical information. Results In Study 1, higher interdependence predicted stronger desire for decision-making information in both countries, but was significantly stronger in Japan. The path from information desire to decision-making influence desire was significant only in Japan. The independence path to desire for decision-making influence was significant only in the United States. Power distance effects negatively predicted desire for decision-making influence only in the United States. For Study 2, high (low) interdependents and women (men) in the United States felt that a colorectal cancer screening decision aid helped prepare them more (less) for a medical consultation. Low interdependent men were at significantly higher risk for low decision preparedness. Conclusions Study 1 suggests that Japanese participants may tend to view medical decision-making influence as an interdependent, information sharing exchange, whereas American respondents may be more interested in power sharing that emphasizes greater independence. Study 2 demonstrates the need to assess value influences on medical decision-making processes within and across cultures and suggests that individually tailored versions of decision aids may optimize decision preparedness.
Gianluca De Leo - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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HICSS - Consumer Perspectives on Quality Attributes in Evaluating Health Websites
2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2012Co-Authors: Donghua Tao, Cynthia Lerouge, Gloria J. Deckard, Gianluca De LeoAbstract:Healthcare Consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet for health information. Health website sponsors and developers are challenged to ensure high quality to satisfy the spectrum of site visitors. Yet, research does not seem to provide needed guidance from the perspective of the Healthcare Consumer. In response, this study provides a taxonomy of website quality attributes and explores differences in ratings of the importance of 15 quality attributes of health websites from Healthcare Consumers. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were deployed to collect the data.
