Innovate Now through Digital Engagement - Part 1

This is the first of series of blogs on the “Innovate Now” imperative and the power of “Digital Engagement” and “Open” as the collaborative strategies, tactics, and technologies that are making positive changes in  health and healthcare around the globe in the 21st century.  This article sets the framework for the series by highlighting the key tools and technologies necessary to innovate smarter and better in health and health care today and tomorrow.

Innovate Now through collaborative Digital Engagement strategies, tactics and technologies is revolutionizing processes and customer interactions in all industries and government.  The only question for leaders in health care, life sciences and government is “how” you will integrate these technologies and solutions into your marketing mix and product offerings to deliver truly value adding, results oriented solutions to preventive, acute and chronic health needs.  With the Affordable Care Act (ACA) firmly in place, now is the time to lead,  not follow!

Digital Engagement is a systematic approach to create positive change and transform healthcare using key management strategies of Collaboration, Open Solutions, Innovation, and the 'New Media tools' to meet the needs of customers today and tomorrow.  Digital Engagement applies the tools and technology of mobile – social media –  gamification – big data analytics – behavioral health economics – collaboration - open solutions to achieve positive changes in performance at the individual and organization levels.

To be more specific, Digital Engagement in the 21st Century for health and health care involves the extreme understanding of the capabilities and powers and ability to apply smartly the following…

Mobile…
• Everyone is connected and the way we manage our lives is radically changing because of 'always on' computing power in the palm of our hands through Internet enabled mobile devices.  Smartphone adoption is rapid with 53% of the U.S. population using a smartphone - and half of that population is using it to access and manage health information, up significantly over the last 12 months. Mobilizing health and health care to an anywhere and everywhere service is being driven by customer demand more rapidly than most executives in the industry realize.

Social Media…
• Connected, real-time virtual social and business experiences mediated by virtual networks ranging from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to SharePoint and Linkedin are taking more and more time out of our days.   These platforms are now vital elements of our social experiences, business processes and health lifestyles.   There are numerous virtual social network platforms for people to use, from PatientsLikeMe to online/mobile personal health management platforms such as HealthVault and Dossia, that are growing in use and effectiveness in helping us manage our fitness, health and health care.

Gamification…
• Making health and health care fun and engaging through the use of gaming technologies. Gamification unbundles the complete video game experience and applies it selectively with a health product or service.  It uses game play mechanics for non-game applications and takes advantage of people’s predisposition to play and game.  It applies game mechanics outside of a video game, immersive learning simulation (ILS) or other gaming experience.  It leverages animation, leaderboards, competition, collaboration and the engagement methods preferred by the target audience/players. Gamification takes what is considered work and turns it into a fun engaging experience that builds healthier behaviors and skills in a more effective and engaging approach than other traditional learning methods.  The evidence and experience base documenting effectiveness is growing.  Plus we humans love to play and learn by doing and this is what is delivered through Health eGames.  See Health eGames Market Report.

Collaboration…
• Collaboration involves sharing and disseminating knowledge, know-how, and resources between  leaders, researchers, developers, consumers, and public and private sector organizations. Collaboration allows them to save time, money, and effort across the many tiers within the healthcare sector. Collaboration is the hallmark of the growing global 'Open Movement', e.g. 'open source', 'open access', open data', open standards'. See Medical Informatics 20/20: Collaboration, Open Solutions, & Innovation

Big Data Analytics…
• Make better decisions through big data consolidated from multiple sources and sensors.  With the digitization of health care via Electronic Medical Records and now patients walking around with smartphone sensors, the era of big data in health is here. Big data analytics is takes large amounts of data of a variety of sources and types and through deliberate analytic processes seeks to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations and other useful information to lower health care costs and improve outcomes. Gartner recently reported that 'Open Data'—the concept that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish (e.g. research findings and reports), without restrictions from copyright, patents or other forms of control—could prove to be even more critical - and profitable - to  businesses than 'Big Data'.

Open Solutions…
• “Open Solutions” in all its forms from Open Source Software, Open Standards and Open Architecture to Open Innovation, Open Cloud and Open Health are core elements of the innovation initiatives in information technology and business/clinical processes today and tomorrow.  Our book “Medical Informatics 20/20 – Quality and Electronic Health Records through Collaboration, Open Solutions and Innovation” defined the many forms of “Open”.  This Innovate Now article series will provide some of the latest and greatest updates - like the emergence of Open Data!  For example, with the rise of interoperability and the demand from customers for transparency, Open Data solutions are now delivering data access via the Web and Mobile through the Blue Button initiative started by HHS and the Veterans Health Administration.  Blue Button adoption is now being embraced by the private healthcare sector with leading health plans making patient health data available through a Blue Button download.

Behavioral Health Economics… 
• This is a new field that is evolving out of the overall area of Behavioral Economics.  It is the science of analyzing (economic and non-economic variables), predicting and influencing human health behavior.  It views people as not being rationale and studies the interplay of mobile – social media – big data and other elements to influence the fitness, health and medical decisions individuals, families and overall targeted populations. The Well-volution initiative of Blue Shield of California is one of many efforts that are using Behavior Health Economics plus the other elements described in this article to realize positive health outcomes and lower costs.

All these strategies and the underlying tools and technologies must be carefully integrated and applied to support 'next generation' Care Coordination and Population Health Management within the context of a family and person centric health and a wellness imperative.  Healthcare is moving from a reactive disease care process to a predictive, proactive, personalized patient-centered model enabled by a care team who thinks about a person and their family’s health needs when they are not in the exam room or hospital.

The bottom line is that we now have the capability and ability for mass personalization to match the preferences of patients and professionals so that the engagement index soars.  Engagement will be achieved because we have creatively and accurately applied Digital Engagement tools of mobile - social media – gamification – collaboration -  cloud – open solutions – big data – behavioral health economics and good old human ingenuity. We are creating the future through ubiquitous technology, wearable sensor technology, personalized intelligent self-care systems, personal health & wellness virtual agents and coaches, predictive health systems, and much more.  Through the Innovate Now strategies, technologies and systems we are truly transforming healthcare to a positive Health@Anywhere experience for the people, patients and professionals we are empowering.

Written by eFuturist & Senior Editor for Open Health News, Doug Goldstein, and Peter Groen