A new report is shedding light on how social media can help healthcare payers and patients alike transform the industry into a better one.
The PwC study found that patients are increasingly relying on social media to find and share medical information. Almost half of the respondents said the information they found via social media could influence them to get a second opinion, and one-third reported using social networks to obtain medical information from other patients.
Read more »
April 13, 2012 by Ani Young
Recently Dean Health System’s President and CEO, Craig Samitt, spoke out on the topical issue of Meaningful Use as it pertains to payers.
Samitt himself has helped implement an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system for his organization, but thinks the healthcare industry may be putting too much focus on making EHRs ‘meaningful’ and not enough on other relevant and equally significant technologies. Samitt says to truly make healthcare in the United States “accountable”, we need to expand our idea of what health IT is to include systems such as kiosks, online healthcare portals, computer-enabled triage systems, expansive online access to medical evidence, sophisticated data analytics, remote patient monitoring, and social media. Samitt says he is not alone in this thinking.
Read more »
April 5, 2012 by Ani Young
A survey completed last month by the National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) found that a whopping 95% of healthcare stakeholders categorize patient engagement as either ‘important’ or ‘very important’.
Only 5% of the respondents answered ‘somewhat important’ and NONE said found engagement to be unimportant.
Overwhelming as those statistics are, they may not be surprising. Of course, most players in the healthcare IT industry hope to impact patient lives in positive ways.
Read more »
March 26, 2012 by Healthx Marketing
March 26, 2012 – Indianapolis, IN – According to a newly released infographic by healthcare solutions company Healthx, the rising trend in mobile healthcare apps is here to stay.
Healthx, which recently released its own mobile app to help healthcare payers connect with members, found that mobile apps in general have been downloaded almost 11 billion times since their introduction to the market. Specifically, the healthcare app market is gaining particular speed, with experts forecasting 142 million downloads by 2016.
The proliferation of healthcare apps can be credited to the way smart phone usage has skyrocketed in recent years. Last year, for the very first time, smartphone and tablet shipments to the U.S. exceeded those of desktop and notebook shipments. Furthermore, almost 75 million Americans reported owning a smartphone last year.
This technology shift has, in turn, revolutionized the way people consume healthcare information. Remote patient monitoring services using mobile networks is expected to become a nearly $2 billion market by 2014. Experts also predict mobile will become the most popular way of accessing the internet by that same year. Such statistics generate a promising atmosphere for upcoming changes in the U.S. care management model, including Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) and Patient Centered Medical Homes (PCMH).
The above evidence is what spurned the recent release of Healthx’s mobile app, currently helping several payers discover new ways to engage members in their healthcare. Healthx released the mobile infographic to shed light on current technology fluctuations that are affecting the mobile and healthcare industries.
Read more »
March 20, 2012 by Ani Young
A recently published study found that the inclusion of online applications can increase or at least help maintain health plan enrollment numbers.
The research, which looked at the online enrollment of California’s Medicaid program for children, identified a 14% spike in overall enrollment immediately following the implementation of the web applications.
The online tools aim to make the enrollment process smoother for applicants, including automatic error checking and determining the relevance of application questions. In fact, researchers conducting the study concluded that some members wouldn’t have even registered at all if it weren’t for the efficacy of the new integrated healthcare solutions.
Read more »
« Older Posts
