Our Newsletters/Blog
The 2010 Health Care Consumer, May 2010
In 2007 the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions began publishing a “snapshot” of the health care consumer. They have published an updated picture each year and we have them all posted in our Library. Our August, 2008 Newsletter provided a brief summary of the initial results and ended with the following statements:
*Health care is a consumer market
*The consumer market is not homogeneous
*Consumers want to make their own decisions and want the tools to help them
*Consumers are embracing innovations that are disruptive to stakeholders who provide traditional health serves and health plans
We have been through a lot over the past three years in health care. The term consumerism, retail consumer, patient-centered, transparency, and individual responsibility has been bantered about for quite some time now. Consumers are operating different than in the past not only in health care, but in all other industries as well. Through it all, we’ve watched as the health care system has tried to adjust to both the changes of reform as well to the changes taking place as a result of our broader economic picture.
Despite all of the information that is now available, the health care system continues to focus its efforts from the top down (defining what is best for the consumer) as opposed to really listening to what the individual participant, the individual consumer has to say. Listening to the consumer is the real key to engagement.
We thought it would be interesting to take some of the information already available from a number of different sources and see if we could craft a letter to the health care system that accurately represents the views of the 2010 health care consumer. We wonder if the health care system has heard or is even capable of responding the way other consumer markets do. Remember, until the consumer is on-board and engaged we’re going to have a difficult time digging out of the mess we’re in today.
It may be time to listen a little harder.
