Last year, author Bryan Brewer wrote a post entitled, The Growth of DIY Healthcare as part of Centric’s series on the Top 14 Business and Technology Trends of 2014. Now, more than a year later, Bryan explores the accuracy of that prediction.
Prediction:
New healthcare methods and technologies empower consumers to take charge of their own health. Like the explosion of direct-to-consumer advertising by pharmaceutical companies in recent years, health plans, device makers and even clinicians are innovating and advertising with an acute focus on the specific desires of the healthcare consumer.
Analysis: Spot On.
I believe that my prediction of an increasing push toward direct consumer engagement by healthcare organizations in 2014 has proven accurate.
Record numbers of new healthcare and wellness-related tools and applications continue to flow into the market and the competing releases of Apple’s and Google’s healthcare-focused developer toolkits can be expected to drive even more innovation to the market in the areas of personal health devices and data management.
Federal regulators, care providers, and health insurers all put intense focus on “engaging” patients through new rules, marketing, and initiatives aimed at encouraging direct personal involvement and accountability in healthcare decision-making, lifestyle changes, and in wellness / fitness.
The drive to engage and activate patients – with technology, with policy, and with knowledge – will accelerate even further once the anticipated benefits in improved individual health / wellness and in reduced overall healthcare costs become more apparent.