Healthcare consumer engagement lessons from South Park

by Matt Seager When the recent South Park episode "Taming Strange" kicked off with a joke about the school counselor's expensive new app that was supposed to streamline the process for seeking school-offered health services (but really managed to do anything but), I thought I was in for 22 minutes of jokes about HealthCare.gov's troubled launch. However, Comedy Central's flagship show went deeper. Much of the show was an impressively poignant commentary on the value and pitfalls of electronic medical records (EMR) and health IT-based consumer engagement strategies. The mere fact South Park focused an episode on HIT and consumer engagement tells us the following... The average consumer is aware of HIT-based consumer engagement solutions. In others words, if a doctor tells a consumer his or her office has an app for making appointments or downloading medical records, it likely won't catch consumers off guard. They've seen it on South Park and they've seen it elsewhere. This may be a good thing: On a certain level, it means consumers are prepared for HIT-based engagement as an eventuality. It's here now in our cultural consciousness. The average consumer has a preconceived notion of what HIT means and how it works. Consumers probably think they know what to expect from an app from their doctor's office or health plan. It's also likely they already have an opinion or at least an idea of whether they will be receptive to this engagement approach. The point is we don't hav...
Source: hospital impact - Category: Health Managers Authors: Source Type: blogs