When Data Isn't Enough

OK, so information is power. But does information alone have the power to transform healthcare? To help people make healthy lifestyle choices and get patients fully engaged in their care? Can healthcare information technology transform healthcare -- as so many say we must -- from a system that treats disease to one that prevents it?

There are plenty of folks who are trying to use data and technology to do just that--from physicians to the government to patients-turned-advocates. Many of their ideas to use healthcare data to empower patients were on display at last week's Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco. They ranged from hot apps to cool gadgets to interactive websites as adorable and non-threatening as a game of Farmville or Angry Birds.

I admit that I was fascinated by all of the wares on display. But my inner skeptic wants to know: Where are the technologies, tools, and solutions that will engage patients who just don't care about their health that much in the first place? Or those who don't have the time, resources, or energy to take on the task of getting and staying healthy?

Getting healthcare data and information into the hands of engaged patients is a lot less of a challenge than reaching those who are not.

Developers are banking on techniques like "gamification" (a horrible word to describe health-related web sites that have game-like interfaces and qualities) as a way to get folks to learn about their health and use their healthcare data to improve it. 

Then there's the Facebook effect: Many online platforms are mimicking the social media platform -- and some have functions that allow users to post their health stats directly to Facebook for friends and family to "like."

But if being an engaged patient were as easy and as fun as playing Farmville or Angry Birds, America would be the healthiest population in the world.

As one of the folks I was sitting next to at a session said, after seeing a demo of one of these game-like sites: "That's great. But does it work?"

I'm a healthcare technology reporter. And I was covering a healthcare technology conference. So of course many of the solutions were high-tech: slick, expensive, complicated, or some combination of the three. And they're great for those patients who really do hunger for more data about their health and have the time, energy, and desire to use it.

Someone who worked for months to lose 60 pounds or who has been smoke-free for six months will be tickled to brag about it on Facebook. Exercise freaks will be stoked to have an app that charts and graphs his or her heart rate and ratio of fat to muscle mass.

The family that eats fast food four nights a week, the couch potato who only moves to shake the last of the chips out of the bottom of the bag, or the mother of two with a full-time job who wants to lose weight but cannot find a spare minute in her day, let alone an hour to go to the gym? Not so much.

To be clear, I'm not dismissing any of the innovative ideas presented at the conference. We are making great strides toward getting data into the hands of those patients who want it and know what to do with it.

And for those who are not quite there yet but want to be, the government is taking action to educate patients about health information and the technologies they can use to access and interpret it. High-tech body sensors that track blood pressure, heart rate, steps, and more will appeal to the large and growing population of gadget geeks.

But there's still a crying need for easy-to-use (dare I say low-tech?) solutions to the problem of public health (or lack thereof). I'm talking about solutions that require as little effort on the part of the non-engaged patient as possible.

There were a few disarmingly simple ideas that stood out for me, including one from the Society for Participatory Medicine that uses data in a way that has the potential to reach lots of people in a way that can be easily understand.

The organization is aiming to certify 10,000 physicians as being adept at partnering with their patients to improve health. Much like those "People love us on Yelp" stickers you see in restaurant windows, the group's seal of approval would identify physicians who meet the organization's standards for participatory medicine: Providing patients with their own personal health data, getting input from patient advisors to guide their practices, and providing other medical resources to patients.

Healthcare data needs to be widely accessible and easy to understand. Once we've accomplished that, let the Angry Birds games commence.