Many smart phone users, myself included, use the smart phone and its connected devices to gather data about our healthy behavior (or the lack thereof). Before long we have a rich file of biometric data which no-doubt contains secrets about our health, and, propelled by our enthusiasm, some offer to share the data with their doctors. In fact we will soon be able to stream it over in real time. Oddly, many doctors are not excited to receive our data. How could that be?
At the 2015 World Healthcare Congress, where I was a speaker and attendee this week, Virtual Medicine was key topic. The over-arching conference theme was how the U.S. healthcare sector can deliver better healthcare at lower cost. No one offered to cut his or her salary to solve the problem ("One man's excess is another man's income"), but just about everyone acknowledged that the system has to perform better. And, the key to that is using resources more wisely: focusing them where they do the most good, and delivering more health to customers with the same staff.
So providers are taking a very pragmatic approach to virtual medicine: aiming it to the places where it does the most good in the near term. That means the medical customers who are most at risk of post-operative complications, re-admission for a condition not stabilized, or falling off the medication and diet wagon, but who might succeed if monitored more closely and given more feedback and encouragement. The starting point is people with chronic diseases who are not in the ~10% of the population that self-motivates when they have a problem. That's where the upside lies on the basis of both outcome and dollars. That customer is not a digital-native Millennial outfitted with four types of fitness gadget to measure jogs, bicycle rides, and yoga sessions, who wants to share her health enthusiasm with her doctor.
A wise virtual medicine pioneer put it this way: "We're not interested [professionally-speaking] in the people who want to show us their smart phone data, because we are not worried about them. They are on top of their health status already and probably quite healthy. We're worried about the people who are in danger that we can help if we know what is going on."
So, should we shut down iHealth and drop the fitbit in the drawer in disgust? Obviously not. In the long run, user reported health data will be used increasingly by the healthcare providers, both for tracking and diagnosing individual health status, and for big data analyses of the drivers of health risk and outcomes. This model is well proven with complex systems like aircraft and cars. The potential with the human body, and even more complex system, is clear.
Plus, why the disappointment? When I was a young professional, and thought I had done something great, I sometimes pestered my boss for a reward, and he liked to tell me: "Virtue is its own reward." I'm not sure that's fair in a work context, but it's totally fair in a health context. Reinforcement from the doctor is nice but not necessary. Health is the best reward.
