Do It Yourself Health : Media & Entertainment Technology

October 15, 2012, CEA Industry Forum, San Francisco?A panel looked at the issues associated with do-it-yourself healthcare. Apps and new devices enable consumers to track and manage their health by themselves. Scott Stropkay from Essential Design moderated the panel which was comprised of Jody Rank from GigaOm, Rob Lister from AT&T foundry, and Scott Moore from Best Buy.

Many clients are becoming interested in do-it-yourself as a trend. People are taking charge of their own lives with new apps and devices, but market entry is difficult. The user needs addressed by the new technologies and form factors are providing unsatisfactory solutions for most people. This panel will try to look at meaningful trends to watch and track.

How to change in do-it-yourself health?
Rank responded that folks are using tracking devices and apps for a lot of functions. The health market has many variables and really is part of the health and fitness markets. One growing trend is the move to make smart phones the base platform for many medical functions. Apps enable untrained people around the world to displace trained health-care providers. Everywhere, there is a need to increase prevention to reduce the cost of healthcare, especially in a pay-as-you-go system.
Lister noted that there are multiple spheres and consumer drivers and needs that sometimes merge with healthcare. Some of the changes are radical, and scalable. Healthcare needs fundamental enablers because costs are the big drivers in this industry. Small company app developers can drive innovation, and this hacker mentality is critical to be transferred to the medical industry.

Origins for new technologies are ground-up or in big companies?
Lister answered that AT&T has many investments in the space in hardware, consumer, retail, etc. These projects address changes and trends to deliver apps and services at scale. These as services must be credible to both the users and to the medical practitioners.
More noted that it's very early in these markets and most companies have no experience or knowledge of the services and products to address needs. Accessories to extend the function of a platform or a new business that depends upon connectivity. Many concepts are moving towards products, but it's like schoolyard games, they're still picking the teams and the games are not started yet.

Complex ecosystem and interesting work?
Lister quipped rock star health care. The reality is that the data space has many diverse systems to mix and match data. Users must pull data from silos and merge these data to be useful. As a result companies must build a robust, secure information infrastructure for the consumers. Unfortunately, this will probably mean that data traffic to the user will be one-way with no interactions. This is antithetical to medical practices where the desire is to create an intervention or behavioral change.

Retailers?
Moore wondered who should or could play in the spaces. It seems to be fundamentally a medical issue, but the users still need a place to buy stuff. Some of the phases that need to be addressed include creating an engaging experience, help with setup, and other integration issues. Some companies are starting to work in the spaces to produce products and services for consumers. In addition, many healthcare activities are getting game-like interfaces to improve compliance and ease-of-use. The industry needs to clearly identify problems and ranges of solutions and then work to increase consumer awareness.
Lister added that retail is the endpoint, and must build their own experience and add other apps while realizing that they are not working with full medical devices. Openness helps, but there's still a need to develop full solutions and not be intrusive.
Rank noted that the user experience is very fragmented. The general category of fitness and health if seeing a reduced quality of engagement because there's no way to share data. Systems-level integrators with partnerships are needed to integrate the data streams and improve sharing. The whole industry needs better justification and validation so companies integrating functions, when possible, can enable services, like a "Geek Squad" for home health.

Who to track?
Rank suggested that data analytics are critical, because getting the data out of the separate silos is not easy. Something has to create the conditions to get patient data into useable form. Most data are unstructured, so there is a great need for some intermediary to translate. Retail and healthcare need to form partnerships to get everything to work together.

Integrating disparate systems and using a tablet for control. Data needs tracking and analytics, so what are the effects in health and well-being data to change programs?
Rank gave an example. A diabetes blogger posted comments about an insulin pump and how bad user experience was. As a result of this posting, the company changed the industrial design and made the device more consumer friendly. These type of changes in net greater engagement in compliance in the consumers.

Opportunities?
Frank offered integration of data. Currently, fitness apps map information like run length, time, and speed, and allow runners to share information. Microsoft personal health records use middleware to bridge health and fitness spaces. By designing better user interfaces, user engagement improves.
Lister appended designs have to make tasks more pleasurable, and increase engagement. Smart phone users check their phone over 20 times a day. Integrating these checks with multiple engagements in healthcare will improve overall care. Smart phones can provide location and environmental information in addition to the medical content. The ecosystem needs to add all these contexts.
More desired to see greater changes in medical practices. Current methodologies are out of date, stressing compliance versus demand-driven care. The health care system needs aspirational modes to improve overall results. From the consumer space, Nike created the waffle trainer that started the running revolution. These shoes were a product that people had to have, and change their behavior from passive to active.

Bridge the gap between medical suppliers and people, this is an opportunity to deliver connectivity, education, etc.?
The more suggested that the manufactures can put their products into stores. They have to build a brand with trust, find the right technology and create a place to go when something goes wrong. This will require partners and bundles of products and services.

Lessons?
Lister confided that there is a very large health products business out there. Leaders will understand the entire system and invite lots of people to tell of the challenges in this business. The main audience is most likely to be the apps developers who don't know very much about the healthcare business and the regulations associated with it. Partnerships are needed to share ideas and touch all the stakeholders while enabling opportunities for branding.
Rank added that the medical area is tricky. Unfortunately, logic and reason are not applicable because of the perverse incentives driving the industry. Medical care has to move from episodic care to real-time tracking and monitoring. Doctors and patients have to adopt change and find ways to overcome the high levels of friction in the system. For example, only half of the doctors are using electronic health records, and most are very unhappy with these electronic records. When we get to a transition point of medical practitioners no longer reacting but working in real-time, we will find that many devices will fail to perform their functions due to the changes that just occurred.

Desirable characteristics the total solution will include the personality of the devices to improve motivation and use. The FDA is starting to look at outcomes and usage?
Rank responded that economics are the big driver in care organizations, so we have to change the payments and economics systems. We need data and analytics to track people and their use of medicine, and we need tools to keep you healthy in that state.

Advice?
More noted that it's important to make sure the care sector is defined broadly. Commonly, we overlook the awareness problems, so products and services must be real, simple, and something you want to do now. The design challenge is how to get a product stand out while still being real and simple for both consumers and practitioners.
Lister suggested making healthcare automated will not work. The platforms can be defined in many ways but it's important to set up an app or a device to not be a data hog. Today, most devices have separate data barriers to the exclusion of others, but the marketplace needs relationships and frameworks so that business and technical risk are at a level that the user can accept and use these products. It's important to start with the user and understand the user's needs. The problem solution and value proposition to the user is what really matters. Don't worry too much about what the professional caregiver are saying. The health industry needs to create an ecosystem. Rank added that there is a style of innovation. Portals that attached to smart phones create products and services that merge into something as typical consumer can handle. However, there're risks for the consumer electronics companies who need to find partners for the attendant services. Health care has to evolve to be functional as an algorithm.

Consumer electronics and electronic health records?
Rank stated that initially EHRs affected the clinician's workflow. There is higher friction in clinical accounts and I'll still take a long time to change this.
Lister said there are two views of data; the consumer view that is very engaging, and once exported to practitioners something actionable.

Drs. now have to deal with big data. They need intelligence scanning agents, some type of dashboard for the medical organizations consuming all the data? Insurance companies?
Rank responded that insurance companies are very important because consumers are willing to spend money on known functions that demonstrate value. Public-private partnerships are needed to validate data and value products.
?

Posted by Tets on Tuesday, November 6, 2012 at 5:48 pm?
Filed under Featured Content, New Technology, Tradeshows ? Tagged with CEA, companies, consumers, data, Event, featured, health, products

Source: http://mandetech.com/2012/11/06/do-it-yourself-health/

solar flare joseph kony 2012 arian foster dennis kucinich apple ipad kony kony 2012