It’s empathy, stupid.

I’ve long admired James Carville for his bluntness and occasional insights. When Bill Clinton’s campaign was struggling in the fall of 1992, it was Carville who helped move George H.W. Bush from “unbeatable” to lame duck by so clearly stating what most Americans already knew.  Clinton needed to shift the focus to jobs and prosperity, thus inspiring the now famous phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

I couldn’t help thinking of that phrase — it’s the economy, stupid — when I came across a recent study published in Academic Medicine that looked at the connection between physicians’ empathy and clinical outcomes for diabetic patients. Researchers at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia sought to test the hypothesis that physicians’ empathy could benefit their patients in real and meaningful ways.

Low and behold, empathy matters!  Among almost 900 diabetics, the study found that a physicians’ degree of empathy was a “unique and significant contributor” to the prediction of good control of hemoglobin A1c and LDL cholesterol.  Physicians with high empathy scores had patients with better health outcomes. Read the full story

Share

Tags: , ,
Posted in Clinical Outcomes, Social Networking | No Comments »

Foundation for Wellness

I recently sat down with senior executives from one the nation’s largest health insurers to talk about social networks in health.  Since health plans have

The Wellness Pyramid

been slow to embrace social media, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  In the end I learned that insurers have no illusions about what is at stake as more of their subscribers turn to the Internet to navigate their health care decisions.

Health economist Jane Sarasohn-Kahn pointed out in a recent post that health insurers in particular should care deeply about how engaged consumers are in their health.  Engagement tends to foster smarter choices when it comes to managing our health, whether it’s choosing to exercise, eat more vegetables, take our medicine or see a doctor.

By contrast, lack of engagement typically leads to worse health outcomes.  That means more spending on medical care, a known cause of heartburn and sleeplessness among health plan executives. Read the full story

Share

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Consumer Empowerment, Wellness | No Comments »

Patient Empowerment Starts with Consumer Engagement

At Alliance Health we are striving to build the greatest value for the greatest number of consumers as they increasingly turn to the Internet to navigate their health care.  To succeed we need to be laser focused on consumer engagement.

Many of the biggest players in health fixate on the “strategic” value of new technologies for patient care and the latest approaches to wellness.  It’s comforting to think about the promise of these advancements, but the reality is most consumers are not crying out for a personal health record or a new widget to identify drug on drug interactions.

Important as these tools are, few are likely to take hold in a meaningful way until we successfully engage consumers in their health. That is why Alliance Health is dedicated to building a social networking platform of unrivaled quality and reach.  We believe social innovation is the key to cracking the code on consumer engagement.

For too long, the interests of the most powerful industry players have trumped the interests of health care consumers. There has been disproportionate focus on addressing the needs of health plans, pharmaceutical companies, employers and doctors. In this environment it’s little wonder that consumers are disillusioned.  A recent Deloitte survey found that three out of four consumers grade the U.S. health care system as “C” or worse. Read the full story

Share

Tags: , ,
Posted in Consumer Empowerment, Social Networking | No Comments »