Health Populi

JANUARY 10, 2024

The growing movement of health care to the home is evident by a growing list of point solutions featured at CES 2024. Digital health has been a fast-growing category of consumer-facing devices at CES for over a decade. But with the growing ubiquity of connectivity, cloud computing, sensors and this year AI “everywhere,” a person’s home as their health-hub is an increasingly practical scenario.

Mental health 170

Mental health Digital Health Health Technology Patient Experience 170

Health Populi

JANUARY 10, 2024

The heart is a major health-category at CES 2024, from wristband wearable tech to remote health monitoring devices enabling cardiovascular hospital-to-home care. Abbott, one of the first life science companies to exhibit at CES back in 2022, announced the HeartMates program here at #CES2024 today as part of a panel titled Ahead of the Game: Revolutionizing Athlete Safety with Emerging Health Tech.

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Life Science Pharmaceuticals Connected Health 203

Health Populi

DECEMBER 18, 2023

Nurses rank highest among various factors in the U.S. health system in the latest Gallup poll — earning a grade of “excellent” or “good” by American adults surveyed in November 2023. Further substantiation for nurses’ topping this poll of excellent care is that Gallup found historic low confidence in the U.S. health system among Americans earlier this year in a July study.

Nursing 344

Nursing Pharmaceuticals Telemedicine Patient Experience 344

Health Populi

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Two-thirds of U.S. consumers say they can’t afford to pay their medical bills on-time, based on the 2023 Consumer Survey from Access One, a financial services company focused on healthcare payments. The report’s title page asks the question, “What options do consumers really want for paying healthcare expenses?” The survey report responds to that question, finding out that nearly one-half of patients have taken some kind of action to reduce their medical expenses.

Medical Billing 170

Medical Billing 170

Health Populi

NOVEMBER 21, 2023

“Businesses which have witnessed a rise in brand value…have all transcended their established category norms and play a more significant and meaningful role in society and consumers’ lives,” we learn in the Interbrand Best Global Brands 2023 report, subtitled, “How Iconic Brands Lead Across Arenas. Most brands stagnated or lost ground in terms of brand value in 2023, with average growth rate of 5.7% compared to 16% in 2022.

Mental health 220

Mental health EHR Health Data Patient Experience 220

Health Populi

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

“Do personal health trackers belong in the doctor’s office?” Software Advice wondered. “Yes,” the company’s latest consumer survey found, details of which are discussed in a report published on their website. Unique to this study is the patient sample polled: Software Advice surveyed 876 patients in September 2023 to gauge their perspectives on wearable tech and health.

Health Data 407

Health Data EHR Digital Health Health Technology 407

Health Populi

OCTOBER 17, 2023

One half-of health care financial leaders plan to invest in technology to cut costs — and most believe that AI has the potential to re-define the entire finance function as they look to Leading the transformation, a study conducted by U.S. Bank among U.S. health finance leaders thinking about emerging technologies. U.S. Bank fielded a survey among 200 senior health care financial leaders in the U.S., 30% of whom were group CFOs, 20% regional/divisional CFOs, 25% senior managers, and the r

Medical Billing 193

Medical Billing Patient Experience Connected Health 193

Health Populi

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

Workers in America are worried about the potential impacts that artificial intelligence (AI) could have on the workplace and jobs, according to Work in America: Artificial Intelligence, Monitoring Technology and Psychological Well-Being , a study from the American Psychological Association (APA). For many years, we’ve been tracking APA’s Stress in America studies gauging Americans’ mental health before the pandemic and during the pandemic.

Mental health 240

Mental health 240

Health Populi

AUGUST 27, 2023

Americans cite opioids and fentanyl, obesity, and access to guns and firearms as the top three public health challenges this summer of 2023, according to the new Axios/Ipsos American Health Index. As for government priorities dealing with public health, though, U.S. health citizens say the top priority should be lowering the costs of health care and prescription drugs.

Public Health 156

Public Health 156

Health Populi

AUGUST 9, 2023

“Generative AI already has the power to alleviate some of providers’ biggest woes, which include rising costs and high inflation, clinician shortages, and physician burnout,” Bain & Company observe in Beyond Hype: Getting the Most Out of Generative AI in Healthcare Today. By the end of this paper, the Bain team expects that those health care leaders who are investing in generative AI today (to start small, to win big in the report’s words) will learn key lessons that

Nursing 156

Nursing 156

Health Populi

AUGUST 7, 2023

Statin therapy has been used for decades to lower cholesterol with the goal of reducing mortality and preventing cardiovascular problems such as heart attacks and strokes. Hims & Hers announced a new service offering for health consumers and clinicians concerned about heart health called Heart Health by Hims. This is Hims & Hers’ first foray into cardiovascular health, working in collaboration with the American College of Cardiology (ACC).

Digital Health 156

Digital Health Patient Experience Health Information Pharmaceuticals 156

Health Populi

JULY 20, 2023

Barbie is having a moment, marketers agree. This weekend, many of us will buy movie tickets (yes, to see “real” movies in “real” brick-and-mortar cinemas) to see both the new film Oppenheimer along with the Barbie movie. So many movie-goers will be making it a double-feature experience that started as a meme, the portmanteau “Barbenheimer,” to mark the cultural-phenomenon moment.

Nursing 296

Nursing Mental health 296

Health Populi

JUNE 26, 2023

People love being health-insured, but their negative experiences with health plans create serious burdens on patients-as-consumers. And those burdens impact even more people who are unwell than healthier folks. The 2023 Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Consumer Experiences with Health Insurance updates our understanding of and empathy for insured peoples’ Patient Administrative Burdens (PAB).

Medical Billing 156

Medical Billing Mental health Patient Experience Medicare 156

Health Populi

JUNE 23, 2023

If you live in Massachusetts, Hawaii, and New Hampshire, you win a kind of state lottery for public health and well-being, based on this year’s read of the 2023 Scorecard on State Health System Performance from The Commonwealth Fund. Here’s a picture of the annual study’s top-line findings, a roster of the fifty U.S. states ranked by a mash-up of health system indicators.

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Public Health Health Policy 323

Health Populi

MAY 8, 2023

Using the Internet and mobile health apps are as mainstream as swiping left for a date and researching features in a new car, based on the Digital 2023 Global Overview Report from Meltwater. The broad coverage of this kind of research can’t be accomplished by just one entity, and Meltwater acknowledges the partners who brought them to this research-party: these included data.ai, GSMA Intelligence, GWI, Locowise, Ookla, PPRO, SemRush, Similarweb, Skai, and Statista.

Digital Health 156

Digital Health Mobile Health Telehealth 156

Health Populi

MAY 7, 2023

As implemented in the COVID-19 era and its immediate wake, the most obvious environmental benefits offered by telehealth visits replacing in-person patient encounters have been achieved through reduced patient travel, considering The Role of Virtual Consulting in Developing Environmentally Sustainable Health Care , a systematic literature review published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Telehealth 156

Telehealth Health IT Connected Health Health Policy 156

Health Populi

MAY 2, 2023

This week, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy unveiled a plan to address loneliness in America. This isn’t a theoretical thing: Dr. Murthy has come out of the loneliness closet to tell us that he, too, has confronted and dealt with to loneliness, putting himself out there/here as Exhibit A in the epidemic of Americans who are lonely — and suffering risks across every dimension of personal and social health.

Mental health 156

Mental health Public Health 156

Health Populi

APRIL 20, 2023

Food is a basic need, fundamental to our lives and well-being. And for millions of people around the world, and innumerable health citizens in the U.S., food security is part of daily life in 2023. Furthermore, as the U.S. Congress faces voting on the debt ceiling, the issue of SNAP benefits for nutritional assistance (aka “food stamps”) has been identified as a negotiating line-item by certain Federal budget-cut minded folks.

Health Policy 156

Health Policy Pharmaceuticals Public Health 156

Health Populi

APRIL 19, 2023

People have expanded their definitions of health in 2023, with mental health supplanting physical health for the top-ranked factor in feeling healthy. Welcome to the Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Trust and Health , released this week, with striking findings about how the economic, post-pandemic life, pollution and climate change all feed mis-trust among citizens living in 13 countries — and their eroding trust for health care systems.

Mental health 156

Mental health Public Health Health Information Patient Experience 156

Health Populi

APRIL 3, 2023

A majority of the U.S. public does not want politicians to “up-end” government-funded health programs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s March 2023 Health Tracking Poll. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid all garner most partisans’ support whether identifying as Democrat, Independent, or Republican, KFF found in their monthly poll of U.S. voters ages 18 and over.

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Medicare Public Health Health Policy 156

Health Populi

MARCH 6, 2023

Most consumers are bullish on the benefits that digital health technologies can play in their health. Most health care practitioners are also positive about the potential of digital health — recognizing room for improvement for better data integration, interoperability, and the opportunity to bridge gaps to achieve health equity and bolster access.

Digital Health 156

Digital Health Interoperability Healthcare Innovation Public Health 156

Health Populi

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

Over one in three U.S. consumers use a health app or wearable technology device to track some aspect of their health. “The public’s use of health apps and wearables has increased in recent years but digital health still has room to grow,” a new poll from Morning Consul t asserts, published today. Among digital health tech users, most check into them at least once every day in the past month.

Digital Health 156

Digital Health Medicare Mental health Health Data 156

Health Populi

FEBRUARY 5, 2023

Consumers’ wellness life-flows and demands in 2023 will go well beyond exercise resolutions, eating more greens, and intermittent fasting as a foodstyle. It’s time for us to get the annual update on health consumers from the multi-faceted team who curated the Global Wellness Summit’s annual report on The Future of Wellness 2023 Trends.

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Mental health BioTech Public Health Telehealth 293

Health Populi

JANUARY 24, 2023

Two announcements this week add important initiatives to patients’ growing choices that speak to their consumer-sides’ sense of value and personal healthcare cost-containment: Amazon launched RxPass, a generic medicines subscription service; and, Dollar General promoted its mobile health service powered by DocGo on demand for health visits, “right outside the store.” These two programs come from outside of the legacy health care system of so-called incumbents — hosp

Mobile Health 170

Mobile Health Mental health 170

Health Populi

JANUARY 11, 2023

In the annual 2023 Gallup poll on honesty and ethics in professions in the U.S. , the good news for the human capital of health care is that nurses, physicians and pharmacists continue to lead Americans’ ratings across professions in first, second, and third place respectively. The bummer is that that trust equity has eroded in the past year — especially among health citizens who identify as Republican voters.

Nursing 334

Nursing Health Policy 334

Health Populi

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Health is “made” where we live, work, play, pray, learn….and shop. I spend a lot of time these days in the growing health/care ecosystem where retail health is broadening to address social determinants and drivers of health – namely food, transportation, broadband access, education, environment, and financial wellness – all opportunities for self-care and health engagement.

Patient Experience 156

Patient Experience Public Health Primary Care Pharmaceuticals 156

Health Populi

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

“Two intersecting and interdependent systems comprise democracy in the United States,” Eileen Salinsky, Program Advisor with Grantmakers in Health, wrote in a compelling essay in April 2022. Those systems are, Eileen described, “A political system of representative government, which includes the legislative, executive, and judicial branches at the federal, state, and local levels; and, A collective system of self-governance, which includes how individuals interact with each oth

Public Health 193

Public Health Health Information Health Policy 193

Health Populi

OCTOBER 27, 2022

“The security of online data is the top consideration for consumers across many forms of online activities including email, search, social media, banking, shopping and dating”… and using health apps. A new poll from Morning Consult, explained on their website, explains that For Consumers, Data Privacy Has a Fluid Definition. Those privacy nuances and concerns vary by activity, shown in the first chart here from the study.

Public Health 156

Public Health Health Information Health Data Telehealth 156

Health Populi

OCTOBER 24, 2022

What happens to a health care ecosystem when the volume of patients and revenues they generate decline? Add to that scenario a growing consensus for a likely recession in 2023. How would that further impact the micro-economy of health care? A report from Trilliant on the 2022 Trends Shaping the Health Economy helps to inform our response to that question.

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Pharmaceuticals Primary Care Mental health Public Health 130

Health Populi

OCTOBER 12, 2022

Patients have more financial skin-in-their-healthcare-games facing high-deductibles and direct out-of-pocket costs for medical bills…including prescription drugs. I collaborated with GoodRx on a “yellow paper” discussing The Health Consumers as Payer , with implications and calls-to-action for pharma and life science companies. You can download the paper at this link.

Life Science 170

Life Science Medical Billing Pharmaceuticals 170

Health Populi

OCTOBER 1, 2022

As consumers learn to appreciate and patronize retail touchpoints, entertainment, and financial management via omnichannel platforms, patients and health citizens are seeking more enchanting service levels for their health care. The latest view on patient preferences from Kaufman Hall is out in the firm’s annual 2022 State of the Healthcare Consumer Report.

Mental health 170

Mental health Patient Experience 170

Health Populi

SEPTEMBER 30, 2022

Thinking about the social determinants of prescription drugs, how people take medicines in real life in my latest post in Medecision’s Liberate Health blog. I had one of those special lightbulb moments when listening to Mauricio Gonzalez-Arias, M.D. of NYC Health + Hospitals and Suvida Healthcare discussing medication adherence and what prevents us from taking our meds as prescribed.

Public Health 203

Public Health Pharmaceuticals 203

Health Populi

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

Consumers consider health and well-being as an “essential” household spending category based on new research from Accenture. Accenture polled over 11,000 consumers in 17 countries, considering how people are faring amid “widespread uncertainty and personal financial strains,” in the firm’s words. While two in three consumers feel financially stressed, 4 in 5 intend to grow or hold their personal spending on health and fitness steady in the next year.

Medical Billing 245

Medical Billing Public Health 245

Health Populi

SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

With today’s announcement that Walmart will partner with UnitedHealthcare in a ten-year collaboration to bring affordable health care to Mainstream Americans, we have yet another huge ripple in the evolving retail health ecosystem. The other Big Healthcare news item this week was CVS Health’s planned acquisition of Signify Health , after much speculation that Amazon and other Big and smaller bidders (including UnitedHealth Group) were keen on acquiring the home/care company over the

Primary Care 170

Primary Care Nursing Patient Experience 170

Health Populi

AUGUST 24, 2022

There is a direct association between a person’s health status and patient outcomes and their financial health, quantified in original research published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers from the University of Michigan (my alma mater) Medical School and Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation analyzed two years of commercial insurance claims data generated between January 2019 and January 2021, linking to commercial credit data from January 2021 for patients enrolled

Mental health 287

Mental health 287

Health Populi

AUGUST 14, 2022

“Tom Lawry reminds us that the health care industry can shift from glacial to warp speed when it needs to. Given the right tools, we can evolve from health systems to systems of health, baked with Responsible Intelligence to do good while embedded with respect, inclusion, and transparency. Health citizens deserve Tom’s vision to emerge,” I wrote in a quote on the back of Tom’s new book, Hacking Health Care: How AI and the Intelligence Revolution Will Reboot an Ailing Syst

Mental health 284

Mental health Digital Health Life Science Health IT 284

Health Populi

AUGUST 10, 2022

There is an image from my childhood, drawn by Lorraine Schneider, which reads “War is not healthy for children and other living things.” As I read through a paper published this week on climate change’s contribution to the burden of chronic disease, I couldn’t help but conjure up Lorraine’s observation from my little girl memory bank.

Public Health 394

Public Health 394