According to an oft-cited study, 25% of Medicare dollars are spent on patients in their last year of life. This raises a concern: why are we spending so much money on patients as they near the end? Surely, there’s an opportunity for cost savings here.

In other words: why “waste” money treating a patient we “know” is about to die?

Chuck Dinerstein — a Senior Medical Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health — calls this the dogma of end-of-life care: “If only I could determine who was going to die, I could, as a physician offer less expensive alternatives…”

For the sake of argument, let’s set aside the monstrosity of saying, “we’ve determined you have a 75% chance of dying this year and will, therefore, halt your treatment.”

Instead, let’s start with the “if only” of Dinerstein’s end-of-life dogma.

End-of-Life Mortality: SkyNet to the Rescue?

The end-of-life cost savings paradigm builds on a risky foundation: that our predictive capabilities are sufficient to determine who gets intensive intervention and who doesn’t.

At first blush, that seems to plunge us into an incredibly dangerous version of the guessing game. Of course, as medical professionals and public health experts, we have a few more sophisticated tools at our disposal besides the proverbial crystal ball.

Today, the most promising of those tools include big data, predictive analytics, and machine learning. But can artificial intelligence do the job?

Many seem to think so, but recent attempts to use machine learning to this end have not fared so well. On top of that, it’s not at all clear that patients with the highest risk of death (as predicted by AI) are responsible for the highest levels of spending.

To use Dinerstein’s word, using artificial generation remains a “crapshoot” at two levels:

1. reliably predicting a patient’s impending death

2. accurately correlating spending to those with the highest probability of death

The crux of the issue: we’d like to think we can tell the difference between “very sick” and “dying” with enough accuracy to determine end-of-life spending, but we can’t.

Not even machine learning has given us what we need to predict the future.

We’re Focusing on the Wrong Question

According to Ashish K. Jha, K. T. Li Professor of Global Health and Health Policy at the Harvard, “The problem is less about wasteful spending and more about poor quality of care. We need to focus on providing high-quality, patient-centered care at the end of life.”

A cost-cutting approach to end-of-life care is inevitably doomed to fail.

At its best, this approach puts too much faith in data. At its worst, such an approach reduces patients to mere statistics, treating their final days, weeks, and months as variables to be optimized rather than opportunities for genuine care.

Less Prediction, More Planning

Perhaps the best thing healthcare providers can do is listen to their patients.

As Jha points out, patients’ wishes are often set aside near the end of life. For example, most indicate a preference to die at home, but one-fifth of them die in the hospital.

In part, this may explain why only a third of U.S. adults have completed an advanced directive — despite efforts to promote and even pay for planning on behalf of patients.

There is always room for wisdom in deciding how to treat patients who appear to be near the end.

Even so, what matters most isn’t the quality of our adherence to the end-of-life dogma. It’s the quality of our care, our empathy, and our humanity.

There are clear healthcare disparities in the United States. You know it, I know it, and the millions of Americans who struggle to access healthcare on account of their race, socioeconomic status, age, location, gender, disability status, and sexual orientation all know it too.

Apart from the obvious human cost, this gap has a massive impact on the U.S. economy. According to a recent analysis by Altarum, racial disparities alone account for approximately $93 billion in excess medical costs and $42 billion in lost productivity.

With numbers like these, you’d expect a whole range of actors — from government spendthrifts to productivity-conscious employers — to share a vested interest in eliminating the gap. But, while the will certainly exists, we’ve yet to find a way.

From Broad-Spectrum Policy to Precision-Targeted Health Technology

Systemic overhauls like ‘Obamacare” (the Affordable Care Act) have done much to narrow the gap. Even so, some folks like Shervin Assari — Research Investigator of Psychiatry and Public Health at the University of Michigan — have shown that many broad-scale changes such as ACA and community healthcare initiatives tend to favor the majority over the minority.

Where policy solutions come up short, many have turned to healthcare technology as the most fruitful avenue to the eradication of healthcare disparity in our country. The question of healthcare technology’s usefulness in closing the gap, however, is where and how that technology gets deployed: at the level of the patient or the provider?

As a team of researchers out of Norway have shown, to understand technology’s potential impact on the inequality gap, we can’t focus just on health care services technologies, but must also “investigate emerging technologies in lifestyle health, genomics, and the increased use of personalized devices in health.”

In other words, we need to get away from the provider and closer to the end-user to understand whether and how technology can put an end to the disparity.

This resonates well with Assari’s finding, for the extension of health technology to all would perpetuate the already existing inequality. The concentration of innovative technology in the hands of the most needy, however, would help to rectify existing inequities in the system.

The question is: what does that look like in practice?

Focusing on the End-User

CareMore Health represents just one innovator in this space. Partnering with Lyft to provide transportation for high-need Medicare and Medicaid patients, CareMore learned that innovation has less to do with a high-tech app that none of its patients would use and more to do with finding new-yet-simple ways to solve users’ low-tech transportation headaches. As a result, CareMore shortened wait times, improved satisfaction, and lowered overall transportation costs by more than $1 million per year.

CareMore provides a ready example of innovation focused on the marginalized end-user, but without ample economic incentives, what’s to say what they’ve done will catch on? The traditional “fee for service” model employed by hospitals enjoys the benefit of incumbency, and there’s little incentive for hospitals to challenge the status quo.

Thankfully, a decade’s worth of innovation is changing that dynamic. In the past 10 years, Medicaid and Medicare — not exactly known for their revolutionary thinking — have doled out handsome rewards to companies who’ve found a way to serve the underserved.

From startup insurance providers like Bright, Clover, and Devoted to innovators like Alphabet’s Verily, forward-thinking players in the healthcare space are shifting their attention to America’s poorest — all thanks to this government incentive structure.

As venture capital dollars follow, this state-sponsored dynamic funds the paradoxical concept that the future of healthcare technology may not rest in the halls of that billion dollar healthcare facility at the center of town. Rather, the future may lie in the hands of those poor, marginalized residents at the fringes of society.

It is fundamentally brilliant. So this means that those Americans that have poor access/healthcare today will likely get access to innovation before others because of how incentives are being provided to deliver better health outcomes in this population.

The healthcare gap in this country is deep and wide. While arguments can be raised for or against government intervention, it seems that a synergy is developing between the state and the market. So long as the incentive structures remain, we may soon see the health care gap closed by placing technology into the hands of those who need it most.

What is Going to Close the Health Equity Gap in the United States? was originally published in Healthcare in America on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When people walk into a hospital or doctor’s office, they think of themselves as a patient — a position lacking control.

They’re in a foreign environment, and that makes them uncomfortable.

Something is likely wrong. So wrong that they need help from a professional.

In many ways, that unease is due to their lack of knowledge and education about what’s going on. The disease, the costs, the timeframes — they’re all very opaque to the patient.

And although patients are consumers, there’s a disparity between the two.

Why? Because being a consumer is incredibly different from being a patient.

As a patient, you lack true control, which increases fear and vulnerability.

It’s comparable to going to the mechanic for car trouble. Most of us experience anxiety in the mechanic’s front office because we have little to no knowledge about cars, about the problem, or about the real cost of the work.

We feel powerless. We don’t have control.

When we find a good mechanic we trust, we go to them exclusively. Now, imagine having that same situation, but the problem is not your car — it’s your body. Obviously, that powerless feeling is magnified.

Doctors aren’t mechanics, I know. But there’s one important similarity between entering the realm of healthcare and the mechanic’s shop.

People feel like they’ve lost control, and treating them like consumers helps establish control.

That’s where empathetic consumerism comes into play.

The Consumer-Patient Relationship

Patients are consumers, whether they’re treated that way or not.

They go to their provider for a service, pay for that service, and expect it to solve their issue. That’s a consumer.

Think of it this way: Healthy people are similar to powerful consumers. They can go to the store for an item and choose exactly what they want. They know the price of the item and the next steps. Pay for it, take it home, use it. They’re in control of the situation every step of the way.

On the other hand, people with an illness have to visit a doctor for more information. Suddenly, that person is a patient. They’re still a consumer, but they’ve undergone a transformation.

They’re now in a new — and often nerve-wracking — situation that makes them feel vulnerable.

Almost immediately, power is taken away. They have no control over their illness or what their doctor decides to do about it.

They likely have little to no knowledge about what’s happening to them and how it’s going to affect their life. At that moment, their fear is highest, while they simultaneously feel an almost total loss of control. That needs to change.

Education As Control

We can give patients more control to help them feel less vulnerable during tough times.

We can help them feel more like consumers and less like patients.

It all starts with education and information, which always gives a greater feeling of control.

If you’re knowledgeable about your disease and understand the treatment, you’re more likely to handle it well. You have some control over the situation. The next steps are clear and seem less daunting.

Imagine when patients leave the hospital after surgery — they’re still in a vulnerable position.

What are their next steps? When should they start feeling better? Should they make an appointment if they have a question?

In these situations, an interactive digital health tool can educate patients and provide them with the necessary answers. It’s an opportunity to educate patients, give them some control, and decrease fear and vulnerability.

Innovation Through Empathetic Consumerism

An empathetic digital touch is exactly what we need in healthcare.

Yet we tend to think of a digital experience as something separate from the human touch. But digital tools are most powerful when it preserves and enhances the human experience.

There are also many interactions that don’t happen that should.

Right now, we could have better communication, education, and empathy for patients. This where digital health platforms have a real opportunity to improve healthcare.

By capturing what we love about human interactions, we can return patients’ confidence.

We can give patients back some control they experience as consumers, without taking away the meaningful relationships between patients and physicians.

But empathy, combined with consumerism, is a future we should strive for.

And while taking your car to the shop will probably still give you some anxiety, my hope is that feeling will eventually disappear when walking into a doctor’s office.

Why The Future Of Digital Health Is Empathetic Consumerism was originally published in Pulse Platform on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Imagine coming home from the hospital after an extended stay.

If family members are taking care of you, you likely get a warm welcome home.

But if you’re on your own, going home is not such a pleasant experience.

There’s probably no food in the fridge. If there was laundry when you left, there’s still laundry when you get back.

Instead of that gloomy scenario, imagine your doctor sets you up with a prepaid card for food delivery.

They continue caring for your well-being even after you leave the hospital. Wouldn’t that make recovery easier and leave a lasting impression?

Traditionally, consumers don’t show much loyalty to healthcare companies, partly because their experiences lack a positive impression and emotional connection.

To increase patient loyalty and trust, we need to do a better job of ensuring that patients have a strong, positive emotional experience — from before they receive care to the moment they make it home and begin recovery.

The Experience

Research shows the majority of happiness we get from an experience is actually derived from the anticipation and remembrance of that event.

In healthcare, we’re always focused on taking care of people in the moment. Patients come to us with problems that need solutions now. We provide them with the best experience in the moment, but we often ignore the beginning and end of their journeys.

As providers, we need to do a better job of focusing on the before and after stages of care.

Think of it like this:

If you go in for surgery, you know you won’t remember the surgery itself. You’ll be under anesthesia.

But before the surgery, you’re nervous. You anticipate the worst. It’s tough to wait for the operation to happen. And after surgery, you worry about the recovery.

Your memories of surgery are the days leading up to it and the recovery, not the surgery.

And those two time periods are when healthcare providers have the biggest opportunity to create a positive emotional experience — and earn patients loyalty and trust in the process.

The Build-Up

Have you ever taken a vacation you knew was going to be great?

Maybe you booked the Ritz-Carlton for a week, and you were going to treat yourself the whole time. You probably really looked forward to that week.

Why? Because you knew, without a shadow of a doubt, the Ritz-Carlton would treat you well. You trusted the name, and you trusted the experience would be excellent.

We can do something similar for healthcare.

Even if people aren’t excited for a hospital stay, we can work to reduce lingering fear or anxiety.

It actually take less effort than you think. Simply providing patients with all the information they need about surgery and recovery, and helping them feel connected to their physician, can alleviate stress.

When a patient feels more than just a number, they gain confidence in their outcome.

The Memory

Every company’s goal is to leave a positive impression on customers.

That’s how they get people to buy their product or service again. Creating a warm memory isn’t an accident, and it’s where healthcare has plenty of room to improve.

The healthcare experience doesn’t end when we walk out of the doctor’s office or come home from surgery.

There are prescriptions to pick up, weeks of physical therapy to endure. That final experience is what leaves a warm (or negative) memory in a patient’s mind.

Even if the patient’s journey has been smooth, a poor final experience can ruin trust and loyalty.

So, how do we create a positive memory? By following through after a patient’s initial experience and designing a system that provides for their needs at every step.

The ideal scenario is for a patient to go home post-op and not have to worry about their first meal or prescription fill. Instead, that will all be provided. They’ll have a roadmap to recovery and will feel connected to their doctor if they have any questions.

Memory and anticipation are where powerful emotional connections are born, where trust is built. If healthcare providers want to create loyal customers, they need to design a system that caters to patients’ needs at every point in their journey.

Patient Trust In Healthcare Is Crumbling. This 1 Thing Can Rebuild It was originally published in Pulse Platform on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

First impressions are often wrong, because they’re based on assumptions.

We don’t know enough about someone or something, so we use the tiny bit of information we have. Sometimes, your assumptions are correct.

But you probably wouldn’t bet your bank account on them.

You certainly wouldn’t bet the success of your startup on a few assumptions.

Or would you?

There are a surprising amount of founders who make critical decisions about their business based on speculation.

When you’re wrong about a person you just met, you have time to get to know them better — maybe even become friends.

But when you’re wrong about a decision for your startup, you don’t have much of a safety net. And those decisions can quickly lead to failure.

So, do your best to avoid these five assumptions.

1. You Already Know What The Customer Is Thinking

Most founders feel strongly about their idea and believe in it wholeheartedly.

But not all of them take the time to speak with their target audience to make sure they’re creating something customers actually want.

Don’t ever take it on faith that you know what your customer wants.

You have to speak with the people you’re targeting. Ask questions, figure out the problem, the pain points.

It’s not uncommon for startups to add features or make decisions about their product without ever really consulting the people who will be using it. And unfortunately, once you go down that path, it’s very difficult to circle back.

2. You Need A Complete, Complex Business Plan

You obviously can’t go rushing into your startup without having a basic concept on paper, but that doesn’t mean you need a fully-fledged business plan.

When I started Pulse, people pushed me to write a business plan and figure out exactly what I wanted to do. I resisted that for a simple reason — things change quickly in a startup.

You’ll make mistakes or find success in unexpected areas. And you’ll end up throwing out the business plan you spent so much time writing.

In the early stages of your startup, you’re still figuring out the business model. You’re learning where the gaps are and what your customers really want. And you have to make it scalable.

So don’t spend too much time worrying about a completed business plan too soon, not when things change so quickly.

3. You Can Rely On Traditional Roles

Everyone in a startup is going to wear multiple hats, and people need to be okay with that.

For Pulse, I’ve done everything from looking through code to working on sales and marketing.

Writing content? I’ve done it.

HR work? Yep, that too.

Customer service, tech support — you name it. I’ve worked on it at some point.

That’s life in a startup. Relying on traditional job titles and roles only limits your capabilities. You need to be okay with unstable situations, and you need employees who can thrive in that environment as well.

4. You’ve Got It All Figured Out

We live in a constantly changing, innovative, high-tech world, but pride still comes before a fall.

Assuming you’ve got everything figured out, and beginning to scale based on that assumption, is dangerous.

You really need to show people are responding to your business before you start scaling.

Some of your early adopters might be more flexible than others, but that doesn’t mean you should allow anyone to push you into scaling prematurely.

5. You Can Jump From Crisis To Crisis

When you begin building your startup, there’s a good chance you’ll be understaffed.

But that doesn’t mean that you can manage by constantly putting out fires.

It’s an easy management style to fall into when you don’t have your ideal number of employees. Do some crisis management here, look for the next problem there, continue that pattern indefinitely.

The problem is, this style of management eats up all your time. When are you going to do the standard business work to move forward and begin to scale? Operating like this is unsustainable.

You either manage the amount of time you spend on crises, or you end up exhausting yourself and failing.

All of these assumptions rely on rigid thinking and an unwillingness to change, pivot, and go with the flow when necessary. Don’t allow these to cement your assumptions and crater a good idea before it’s had time to grow into something special.

Don’t assume, be sure.

5 Flawed Assumptions That Kill A Startup From Day 1 was originally published in Pulse Platform on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Have you ever promised yourself you were just going to watch two episodes of a show on Netflix?

How did that work out?

For some of you, maybe it went just fine. But I’m guessing many of you dragged yourselves to bed at 2 AM because you had to finish the season.

Staying up late to binge-watch your favorite shows is common nowadays.

It’s addicting. The shows and the format are designed to keep you watching and engaged.

There are all kinds of social commentaries out there about why this is bad for us, and some of them make great points.

But I’m more interested in how services like Netflix, and even the games we play on our phones, are able to keep people so enthralled.

There’s potential to use some of those same techniques in the digital health field.

Digital health platforms are extremely useful services for patients, but they have to incentivize people to use them — and continue using them for a long period of time.

Here’s how:

Use The Power Of Prediction

Part of the reason you get hooked on one Netflix show after another is because the company knows what you want to see.

Or rather, it predicts what you want to see with increasing accuracy. Every show you watch (or don’t watch) helps them find the next one. That’s a concept digital health platforms can incorporate.

Digital health tools can use machine learning to predict which individuals may forget to take their medication.

This can be harnessed to anticipate all kinds of problems for patients, from missing appointments to forgetting therapy.

If we can find those at-risk patients, we can work proactively to prevent them from reaching the tipping point that leads a dangerous situation.

Give People Fun, Interactive Tools

Gamification is a powerful way to motivate people.

People like using their Fitbits or Apple Watches for exercise. They love when the activity circles are complete on the watch, or when they hit 10,000 stepsin a day. And it’s something they would probably never think about without prompting from the tools.

Obviously, we need to make sure patients are getting some serious information as well.

There’s a fine line between making things fun and interactive for patients, and letting it devolve into a childish game that isn’t engaging for adults.

Imagine a diabetes patient.

Say he has a tool that creates a complex, engaging game to help manage his diabetes. Part of the game revolves around points, badges, and reminders about taking medication.

But occasionally, there might be a notification that pops up and tells him, “Over the past month, you’ve reduced your risk of losing your eyesight by 20%.”

This gaming feature keys him into the serious long-term benefits of properly managing his condition.

Develop Consumer-Driven Tools

Remember the best teachers you had in school?

They didn’t stand at the podium and lecture. They related the material to you in ways you could understand. They made it relevant to your life.

Patients are consumers, regardless of what anyone says. We need to design digital health platforms with their input and needs in mind.

We’re not going to reach 100% of people with digital health tools — just like there isn’t a single show on Netflix that everyone watches. But we do need to make sure these tools work for a broad spectrum of people and are relatable to the people who need them.

That means tools need to be consumer-driven.

Too often, they aren’t designed by the people or professionals who actually use them. Developers don’t necessarily understand what it’s like to control diabetes or blood pressure on a daily basis. There’s room for improvement here.

Relate It Back To Patients

Someone recently told me about a company they were involved with about 15 years ago.

The company was trying to get people to engage with chronic diseases and improve their health, much like what we’re talking about now.

They found they didn’t have much success engaging users unless one of two things happened:

1. The patient had a life-changing event, like a heart attack or a stroke. Something that woke them up to the importance of their condition.

2. Someone in the patient’s family had one of those life-changing events.

Those were the only two ways the company found success, because the events caused the patient to truly relate to their condition.

Right now, we’re not doing the best job of relating to people and helping them understand the importance of their conditions. But digital health platforms can help. We can create engaging, relatable platforms that really improve patients’ lives — and make them addicted to health.

What Addicting Platforms Like Netflix Can Teach Us About Gamification In Digital Health was originally published in Pulse Platform on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m not a fan of doing things the way they’ve always been done just for tradition’s sake.

If there’s a better or more convenient way to do something, I’m all for it.

In healthcare, we need to change what has always been done. We need to start empowering our patients.

And this attitude is translating into more digital health tools for patients.

But what does patient empowerment look like?

One of my partners performed several studies on whether or not patients need formal physical therapy following a specific surgery.

In the studies, one group had a physical therapist come to their home for the first two weeks after surgery. Then, for another eight weeks, the same patients went to an outpatient physical therapist.

The other group had a self-directed home exercise program that they did by themselves for 10 weeks. It was literally just a paper manual with images and an explanation of the exercises.

After 10 weeks, both groups had the same outcome.

One group had a much more convenient program but had similar results as the formal physical therapy group.

Studies like these lead me to believe that digital health tools can hand power back to patients. Here’s how:

1. Comfortable Recovery

No one wants to make daily trips to a hospital or outpatient facility for physical therapy after surgery.

But until recently, they didn’t have another choice. Now, digital health tools allow patients to go through this process from the comfort of their own homes.

If an issue does come up while recovering, the patient does not have to make an appointment or work around the doctor’s office hours. They can ask questions through a digital health app and get quick responses.

This helps patients feel less anxious because they have all the information they need.

They can get answers to their questions. And they’re more comfortable recovering at home.

2. Efficient Appointments

It would be great if every patient who needs to make a doctor’s appointment is going to have a great experience.

As a practicing surgeon, I acknowledge that’s not always the case. The process can be more efficient for patients. And most importantly, the digital connection between patient and provider can be drastically improved.

But we are seeing new apps that make it easier to find and book an appointment. Digital health tools like ZocDoc and DocASAP give patients convenient ways to book appointments with available physicians.

This is crucial to making patients feel in control of their health from step one.

3. An Improved Patient Experience

Our patients are living in a connected world, and most of them are ready to use digital tools to improve their healthcare experience.

But they need to know these tools are out there. As doctors, we need to start showing our patients how these tools improve their experience.

New technology always starts with younger generations and filters upward towards the oldest generation.

This means health tools must provide a better experience for patients of all ages.

I’m 35, and I still have trouble navigating an app on my phone every now and then. We know patients have varying degrees of digital literacy, and that’s why creating a great user experience is always essential.

4. Access To Convenient Care

No one has time to sit on the phone and wait when we need a question answered.

Got a quick question? You probably text instead of calling if it’s an option.

We value our time, and we’re always looking for ways to save more of it.

Digital health tools are disrupting the well-established relationship between patient and doctor that has existed for decades.

These tools are working to make communication convenient between patient and provider, rather than making the patient struggle to get answers.

We always want to leave the patient thinking, “Wow, that was easy.”

5. Proactive Approach To Health

Digital health tools also allow us to make an important switch in patient behavior.

Instead of being reactive, we want patients to take a proactive approach to their health and recovery.

Sometimes, I have a patient who recovered from a surgery before we launched our Pulse app and went through a second surgery recovery using the app. To get unbiased feedback, I don’t tell them I was a developer of the platform. I just ask whether it’s working for them.

What I hear most often is that they appreciate the educational element, and they’re happy that it teaches them what to expect while recovering.

Many patients tell me that they wish they’d had Pulse for their first surgery.

They look forward to reading the notifications each day and checking to make sure they are on track with their recovery. It helps them feel calm about the process, because they aren’t overreacting to an issue when it arises.

They learn about what’s going to happen. When it does, they’re ready.

Digital health tools offer a tremendous opportunity to improve our patients’ experiences and empower them to be proactive about their health. These tools are already valuable assets for delivering the best care possible — and the innovation is only getting started.

5 Ways Digital Health Tools Give Power Back To Patients was originally published in Pulse Platform on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When people walk into a hospital or doctor’s office, they think of themselves as a patient — a position lacking control.

They’re in a foreign environment, and that makes them uncomfortable.

Something is likely wrong. So wrong that they need help from a professional.

In many ways, that unease is due to their lack of knowledge and education about what’s going on. The disease, the costs, the timeframes — they’re all very opaque to the patient.

And although patients are consumers, there’s a disparity between the two.

Why? Because being a consumer is incredibly different from being a patient.

As a patient, you lack true control, which increases fear and vulnerability.

It’s comparable to going to the mechanic for car trouble. Most of us experience anxiety in the mechanic’s front office because we have little to no knowledge about cars, about the problem, or about the real cost of the work.

We feel powerless. We don’t have control.

When we find a good mechanic we trust, we go to them exclusively. Now, imagine having that same situation, but the problem is not your car — it’s your body. Obviously, that powerless feeling is magnified.

Doctors aren’t mechanics, I know. But there’s one important similarity between entering the realm of healthcare and the mechanic’s shop.

People feel like they’ve lost control, and treating them like consumers helps establish control.

That’s where empathetic consumerism comes into play.

The Consumer-Patient Relationship

Patients are consumers, whether they’re treated that way or not.

They go to their provider for a service, pay for that service, and expect it to solve their issue. That’s a consumer.

Think of it this way: Healthy people are similar to powerful consumers. They can go to the store for an item and choose exactly what they want. They know the price of the item and the next steps. Pay for it, take it home, use it. They’re in control of the situation every step of the way.

On the other hand, people with an illness have to visit a doctor for more information. Suddenly, that person is a patient. They’re still a consumer, but they’ve undergone a transformation.

They’re now in a new — and often nerve-wracking — situation that makes them feel vulnerable.

Almost immediately, power is taken away. They have no control over their illness or what their doctor decides to do about it.

They likely have little to no knowledge about what’s happening to them and how it’s going to affect their life. At that moment, their fear is highest, while they simultaneously feel an almost total loss of control. That needs to change.

Education As Control

We can give patients more control to help them feel less vulnerable during tough times.

We can help them feel more like consumers and less like patients.

It all starts with education and information, which always gives a greater feeling of control.

If you’re knowledgeable about your disease and understand the treatment, you’re more likely to handle it well. You have some control over the situation. The next steps are clear and seem less daunting.

Imagine when patients leave the hospital after surgery — they’re still in a vulnerable position.

What are their next steps? When should they start feeling better? Should they make an appointment if they have a question?

In these situations, an interactive digital health tool can educate patients and provide them with the necessary answers. It’s an opportunity to educate patients, give them some control, and decrease fear and vulnerability.

Innovation Through Empathetic Consumerism

An empathetic digital touch is exactly what we need in healthcare.

Yet we tend to think of a digital experience as something separate from the human touch. But digital tools are most powerful when it preserves and enhances the human experience.

There are also many interactions that don’t happen that should.

Right now, we could have better communication, education, and empathy for patients. This where digital health platforms have a real opportunity to improve healthcare.

By capturing what we love about human interactions, we can return patients’ confidence.

We can give patients back some control they experience as consumers, without taking away the meaningful relationships between patients and physicians.

But empathy, combined with consumerism, is a future we should strive for.

And while taking your car to the shop will probably still give you some anxiety, my hope is that feeling will eventually disappear when walking into a doctor’s office.

Why The Future Of Digital Health Is Empathetic Consumerism was originally published in Healthcare in America on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Healthcare isn’t an industry that’s well known for attracting the creative type.

But that’s beginning to change, because digital health companies need creatives to build tools that are interactive, innovative, and customer-centric.

There’s a real demand for out-of-the-box thinkers.

But is digital health really an attractive field for creatives?

You might be surprised.

The dynamics in play make the digital health field a great fit for creatives who want to do meaningful and fulfilling work.

Here’s why:

1. Major Opportunities For Change

In many ways, healthcare is an archaic industry.

Most people wouldn’t believe the way certain things are still done in healthcare. They just assume that we have a more flexible or workable solution for problems.

Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.

But the good news is, those problems create huge opportunities for change within the system.

All issues are fixable in theory. It just takes someone to figure out the solution and implementation process.

That’s why creatives are so sought after right now, and why the industry is such a good fit for them.

There are so many issues waiting for innovative solutions, whether through design, user experience, project management, marketing, or development.

2. Tangible Impact On Society

The healthcare industry has a tremendous impact.

And these effects aren’t vague or abstract. At some point, everyone needs medical care or treatment. Nearly all of us have family members or friends who’ve undergone a surgery, spent the night in a hospital, or taken a regular medication.

Most people (and especially millennials) place a high value on meaningful work.

And working in the healthcare industry presents creatives with the ability to enact real change.

Maybe they don’t have a medical license, but they can still have an effect on the way their families receive care.

In many cases, that impact is felt immediately.

Patients respond directly to the platforms and technology creatives help build.

For example, the people who work on our Pulse app are able to get direct feedback from patients using the app. They hear patients say, “It changed my recovery,” and “I can’t imagine going through recovery without this.”

That’s job satisfaction. That’s meaningful work.

3. Investment Interest

The need for new ideas and innovation in healthcare is real, and investors are willing to pay for it.

There’s a massive interest in making healthcare better, more efficient, and less costly. The money is out there.

Solutions to real problems get funding — just look at startups in the insurance industry. There are tiny startups competing with the most influential health insurance companies in the country. Normally, no one would want to fund them because they’d assume these smaller companies can’t compete.

That’s not the case anymore.

These companies are attacking the insurance model and gaining traction. The environment has changed, and investors are willing to back big ideas.

4. Opportunities To Innovate

There’s a reason we call them creatives.

They aren’t the type who feel comfortable sitting at the same desk, carrying out the same task for years on end. Traditionally, most creatives haven’t looked at healthcare as an industry where they can flex creative muscles.

But the chance to be innovative, to look at problems that haven’t been solved in decades — it’s here.

You can work within the confines of the system, or you can turn the system on its head to come up with something entirely new. Those crazy ideas aren’t being laughed at right now.

People in the industry are open to just about anything.

You don’t hear many people saying, “No, we can’t try that. We can’t do that.”

Everything’s being reevaluated. Now is a fantastic time for people with some creativity to have their ideas heard and acted upon.

The time has never been better for creatives to enter the healthcare industry, and the digital health field is perfectly situated to attract some of the brightest creative minds.

4 Reasons Creatives Should Be Flocking To Digital Health was originally published in Pulse Platform on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Imagine coming home from the hospital after an extended stay.

If family members are taking care of you, you likely get a warm welcome home.

But if you’re on your own, going home is not such a pleasant experience.

There’s probably no food in the fridge. If there was laundry when you left, there’s still laundry when you get back.

Instead of that gloomy scenario, imagine your doctor sets you up with a prepaid card for food delivery.

They continue caring for your well-being even after you leave the hospital. Wouldn’t that make recovery easier and leave a lasting impression?

Traditionally, consumers don’t show much loyalty to healthcare companies, partly because their experiences lack a positive impression and emotional connection.

To increase patient loyalty and trust, we need to do a better job of ensuring that patients have a strong, positive emotional experience — from before they receive care to the moment they make it home and begin recovery.

The Experience

Research shows the majority of happiness we get from an experience is actually derived from the anticipation and remembrance of that event.

In healthcare, we’re always focused on taking care of people in the moment. Patients come to us with problems that need solutions now. We provide them with the best experience in the moment, but we often ignore the beginning and end of their journeys.

As providers, we need to do a better job of focusing on the before and after stages of care.

Think of it like this:

If you go in for surgery, you know you won’t remember the surgery itself. You’ll be under anesthesia.

But before the surgery, you’re nervous. You anticipate the worst. It’s tough to wait for the operation to happen. And after surgery, you worry about the recovery.

Your memories of surgery are the days leading up to it and the recovery, not the surgery.

And those two time periods are when healthcare providers have the biggest opportunity to create a positive emotional experience — and earn patients loyalty and trust in the process.

The Build-Up

Have you ever taken a vacation you knew was going to be great?

Maybe you booked the Ritz-Carlton for a week, and you were going to treat yourself the whole time. You probably really looked forward to that week.

Why? Because you knew, without a shadow of a doubt, the Ritz-Carlton would treat you well. You trusted the name, and you trusted the experience would be excellent.

We can do something similar for healthcare.

Even if people aren’t excited for a hospital stay, we can work to reduce lingering fear or anxiety.

It actually take less effort than you think. Simply providing patients with all the information they need about surgery and recovery, and helping them feel connected to their physician, can alleviate stress.

When a patient feels more than just a number, they gain confidence in their outcome.

The Memory

Every company’s goal is to leave a positive impression on customers.

That’s how they get people to buy their product or service again. Creating a warm memory isn’t an accident, and it’s where healthcare has plenty of room to improve.

The healthcare experience doesn’t end when we walk out of the doctor’s office or come home from surgery.

There are prescriptions to pick up, weeks of physical therapy to endure. That final experience is what leaves a warm (or negative) memory in a patient’s mind.

Even if the patient’s journey has been smooth, a poor final experience can ruin trust and loyalty.

So, how do we create a positive memory? By following through after a patient’s initial experience and designing a system that provides for their needs at every step.

The ideal scenario is for a patient to go home post-op and not have to worry about their first meal or prescription fill. Instead, that will all be provided. They’ll have a roadmap to recovery and will feel connected to their doctor if they have any questions.

Memory and anticipation are where powerful emotional connections are born, where trust is built. If healthcare providers want to create loyal customers, they need to design a system that caters to patients’ needs at every point in their journey.

Patient Trust In Healthcare Is Crumbling. This 1 Thing Can Rebuild It was originally published in Healthcare in America on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.