Are Involved Patients More Compliant?

This is a study from a few years ago from Harris Interactive and BCG that I found on the BioPlus website.  If I am interpreting it right, it would imply that those that are most involved in their healthcare are most likely to be non-compliant.  It doesn’t seem logical, but perhaps those are the people [...]

Three Sad Healthcare Stories

First, I think this is a very disappointing article about workplace violence in the healthcare industry.  I certainly could believe (unfortunately) in the verbal violence since people are very emotional about their healthcare and often stressed over the financial implications and unintuitive processes.  But, this story has some scary statistics which are an issue at [...]

Diabetes or Depression: Which Comes First

Since many of us understand the risk of co-morbidities (i.e., two diseases that commonly exist together), I think it makes a lot of sense to ask this question.  Dr. Gupta from CNN had an article earlier this week on his blog about a study that was recently out on the relationship between diabetes and depression.

Those [...]

Brand Prices Up; Generics Down

For those of you who are interested in this type of stuff, I think the AARP Watchdog reports (Brand Report, Generic Report) which track prescription drug prices over time are pretty interesting.  (Note: This is for drugs most commonly used by Medicare recipients, but I think you’ll get the point.)

Why People Choose Mail Order Pharmacy?

I was looking for something else in the Express Scripts Drug Trend Report 2005 when I came across this study referenced on page 209. I should have remembered since I wrote this section (yes I was a contributor see page 332). This is a Morgan Stanley study which talks about why people choose [...]

George Paz (Express Scripts) on Adherence

Paul Levy who is the CEO of a hospital has a blog called Running A Hospital.  He posted a summary the other day of a presentation by George Paz who is the CEO of Express Scripts.  It has some good facts and there are several good comments on there about defining the terms in this [...]

More On Silverlink’s Think Different Event

I am now up in Minneapolis at our 4th Think Different event on how to engage the healthcare consumer.  I talked about the first few speakers the other day, and I finally had a chance to hear the other speakers present.  This week, I had the chance to listen to  James Taylor (of Smart (enough) [...]

Wisdom Of The Crowd – Socializing Wellness

You probably caught the articles last year about how obesity seemed to spread throughout social networks. Now, in an article in the Washington Post (5/27/08), they talk about another example of research showing that smoking is similarly affected by social networks. Theoretically, this research could have significant implications for using social media (i.e., [...]

NCPA Survey on Adherence

I have been talking a lot about adherence lately (or lack of). A friend sent me the results of a survey of 1,000 adults by NCPA (National Community Pharmacy Association) from October 2006. This is now the 3rd study I have read this week with different results. Of course, they all used [...]

Variance In Children’s Healthcare

I think state-by-state variance in basic statistics is fascinating. It seems like we should have standardized around some fundamentals by now, but the variances continue to be significant.
In a recent report out by The Commonwealth Fund, it showed some wide variation:

Only 46% of kids visit the doctor and dentist at least once a year [...]

PBM Satisfaction Survey

It should be out soon, and it will be interesting to see the data. The WilsonRx PBM Satisfaction Survey is the only (I think) independent survey done of the industry. [Although I never remember paying attention to it at Express Scripts.] From what I know, they seem to get a good sample [...]

Pavlovian Response To Sound

We recently got a new dog (a Tibetan Terrier), and we decided to start training the dog using the clicker method.  I kiddingly commented that it would be great to have something like this to train people.  Apparently there already is such a method, and it can be used as a teaching method for autistic [...]

Kid’s Cancer Highest In Northeast

I think this is an interesting analysis, but I don’t think it shows any causality just correlation.  The key questions (as reported) are whether there is an issue here (e.g., greater exposure to radiation) or just a difference in reporting or access.
The study was just released by the CDC.  It showed that cancer effects 166 [...]

You Only Have To Be Compliant For 10-Days…What Happened?

On the topic of non-compliance, I found this a pretty pathetic statistic:
56% of children on a 10-day course of penicillin for streptococcal infections were no longer receiving the drug by day three. (The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy)
I guess I expect it with maintenance drugs, but this is for your sick kids where you [...]

Deloitte Survey Of Health Care Consumers II

I posted an entry about a month ago about the Deloitte study that was out about consumer segmentation. That was from reading their website.
After someone sent me the PDF on their study, I finally read it on my flight to San Francisco today. It is full of lots of interesting facts based on their [...]

Hall of Shame - Customer Service

On the positive side, there were no healthcare companies that “won” this “competition”.  Winning being that you were rated as having poor customer service the highest percentage of times.  (On the flipside, very few were included.)  [full rankings here]
“We’ve seen a fall in customer service as we’ve gone into a recession,” said Richard D. Hanks, [...]

Guest Post: Health Researchers Obtain Grants for Video Game Study

12 US research groups were awarded grants this week in order to conduct studies on how interactive video games affect players’ health. There has been a lot of press lately for Nintendo Wii and its many health benefits. It seems that the Wii isn’t the only gaming system to influence a person’s lifestyle choices where [...]

Our First Think Different Event

Today was our first Think Different event in Boston. This is a road show we are doing around our new positioning and how health care companies need to get outside the box to improve the effectiveness of their communications. It has four external speakers plus our CEO.
[Spoiler Alert: If you are attending an [...]

Groups And Microsegments

When I was listening to Kinney Zalesne (Microtrends author) present this morning at our Think Different event, there were several things that crossed my mind:

Which micro-trends am I part of?

How much micro-targeting is too much?

Will consumers self-identify into groups?

Without going back to the whole book, I can think of several micro-trends with which I associate:

Marathoning
Stay-at-home [...]

Missing The First Step

When I saw Forrester’s data around Personal Health Records (PHRs), it reminded me of one of the facts we struggled with around increasing mail order utilization…most people didn’t know what it was or whether they had it as a benefit.  (From their Q2 - 2007 Social Technographics Online Healthcare Survey)

So, given all the buzz about [...]

Additional Blog Site

I got asked to contribute to the Drug Safety Hub Blog and just posted my first entry there on patient’s awareness of technology solutions around pharmacy.

Book Review: Health Care Reform Now!

Health Care Reform Now! A Prescription For Change is the latest book by George Halvorson (CEO of Kaiser Permanente). I have been talking about it and using quotes from it for a few months. I finished the book a few weeks ago and figured that I better carve out the time to capture [...]

Medco’s Trend Report

Medco’s Trend Report recently came out for 2008 (which looks back at 2007). Here are some of the graphs and information from it.
“Generic drugs have been a tremendous asset in controlling runaway health care costs,” Medco Chairman and CEO David B. Snow Jr. said. “Generic cholesterol medications have helped contain our drug trend to [...]

Silverlink HealthComm Behavioral Index

Although this new index was released in a story a few weeks ago, the official press release should be out this morning. It has been interesting to watch this transform from a concept to an initial survey with some data.
What is it? The Healthcomm Behavior Index is a quarterly survey of 1,000+ commercially insured [...]

Most Medicated Generation

Well, we have finally broke the 50% mark of people using maintenance (or chronic) medications. It shouldn’t be a big surprise. Sit around the table with your friends and ask who takes a medication (without asking what for). Why do so many people take medications:

We are in worse health…think obesity.
There are better medications.
Doctors are more [...]

Pharmacy Satisfaction Did You Knows

PharmacySatisfaction.com puts out a weekly factoid. They are very interesting and make some great points. I have talked about it before, but here is an updated list with the new factoids from 2008.

Independent drug stores continue to score highest in customer satisfaction, followed by food stores, clinics, and chain and mass merchandise pharmacies, [...]

Are You Doing Enough To Drive Generics?

From the Express Scripts Outcomes event a few weeks ago, here is an estimate of all the money left on the table by not increasing your generic fill rate in certain key categories.  Are you doing enough?

Utilization management programs - step therapy, prior authorization, quantity level limits?
Formulary coverage?
Plan design incentives?
Pharmacy incentives?
eRx messaging?
Web tools?
Patient communications?
Patient incentives?
Driving [...]

Addressing Medicine Adherence

There are numerous studies on this, but they all point to the same issue…compliance.
The National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE) released a report last year that I just came across titled “Enhancing Prescription Medicine Adherence: A National Action Plan“. With only 50% of patients using medication as prescribed, the systemic costs are [...]

Poor Health Plan Satisfaction Due To Poor Communications

JD Power just finished their second annual National Health Insurance Plan Study which looks at member satisfaction.
“The study finds that the majority of health plan members rate their insurer lowest for the communications and information that are provided to help them understand their plan. Only 45 percent of members reported they fully understand how to [...]

Robot Animals

In the spirit of research, I found this an interesting article. It talks about using robotic squirrels to infiltrate the squirrel population and learn about their communication techniques, social queues, and survival instincts.
“Animals and humans are all affected by behaviors, body postures and signals from each other that we may not be aware of.” [...]