Participatory medicine – what the future holds

Expectations of tomorrow’s health consumers in a global interactive society In our research we have found that one third of Swedish patients feel so informed that they give suggestions for treatments when seeing a doctor. Here’s one other question from our survey: How valuable would it be for you to be able to do the following on the web site of your health care centre? Book the next visit to the health care centre, read your own electronic health record, grade the services you received and check waiting times. The expectations varies between 50 and 80 percent for young and middle aged to 40 to 50 percent for those born between 1925 and 1934.

Health consumerism means that patients are going online and that they are actively making health choices. And with more and more freedom of choice, including freedom of national borders, it is up to the health care providers, (in our case mostly the European health care providers) to develop communication channels and to attract health consumers.

So far most health marketers and educators have been slow to respond to this new breed of health consumer. As physicians´ influence over patients declines, resources need to shift more towards consumers. As TV watching and magazine reading declines, messages need to move to online destinations. The good news is that innovative marketers are showing the way. We can already see what´s working, and what´s not, with social media and other digital campaigns.

And above everything we have this fantastic development of devices for personal health monitoring. Mobile phones could be the next platform for health monitoring. In the future, people could be using their mobile phones to share, or store and add information to their medical records. In addition, people with chronic conditions could use special add-on devices to monitor diabetes, blood pressure or oxygen levels in their blood. Mobile health monitoring devices could change the way medicine is practiced by empowering people to take responsibility for their own health management.

The Internet and all the new technology are changing the terms for how we live and work. Everything happens much faster. Every product cycle, every information cycle, every bubble, will happen faster, because of network effects, where everybody is connected and talking to each other.

So there is every reason to believe that those who are really stressed out now by the rate of change will be even more stressed out. “The future is here today. It´s just unevenly distributed”. This quotation by the American-Canadian science fiction writer William Gibson is very true in this case. Gibson coined the term cyberspace. Different nations are in different development stages regarding the use of the Internet and the level of innovative solutions for health consumerism. The journey to a consumer-centric health care system will not be easy, and the specific and practical implications of consumerism may vary widely among health plans. Fortunately, the desire for change is there and our survey , among others, provides a starting point for action.

Mats Olsson
Director Health & Healthcare Kairos Future International