People, not patients
Healing is about people, not patients.
I don't mean to be ridiculous by stating the obvious. And, yes, I realize that every health-related institution and company "puts people first" because "they matter to them." But very few of these businesses ever venture to the place where they consider modifying their model in order to make people less dependent on a product or service. There is simply too much money on the table.
But even more than money, I wonder whether the barrier to change is that people are simply too unpredictable a market on which to build a health behavior business.
So the elephant in the room is people and the conversation ends up stifled and limited to what's already been done. There is talk about educating doctors, work flow improvements, insurance provisions, new gadgets, medical error, drug-to-drug interaction, diet, healthy living, DNA, early intervention, etc. While each of these single channels has merit, none of them acknowledges the wildness of people and the chaos of healing behaviors as a starting place.
We find it impossible to discuss how to cultivate the wild seeds of health; the creative and intuitive "I AM" that powers the best healing. As I write I am wondering whether working with a person's wild side could at least be an option. Isn't acknowledging an awareness and understanding of the wild side as efficient as spending billions to tame it?
The most gifted physicians and nurses get how people matter -- they always have. Some business people are starting to understand. Now we need the top creatives to bring everything they've got (which is more than color and layout expertise) to the table. We need the hearts and minds of these creative people to give voice to people's health problems in a new way. The solutions we market as "healing" will be much better for it.
Creative business partnerships that put authentic experiences of people at the helm are the future of health 2 and 3.0 applications.
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2 comments:
Companies so need to learn this lesson. I have worked for some of the largest health care companies in St. Louis, MO only to leave feeling like just a number. Thus I'm self-employed!
"It's not about me," he said. "It's about patient power."
This is how an excellent article from the Washington Post ends today:
Sharing the Pain: Rare Disease puts an Economist in Touch with Fellow Patients Around the World
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/06/AR2009020603102.html
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