By Sven Larsen (@svenplarsen)
Does it all really boil down to numbers?
Carol McCall, Chief Strategy Officer at GNS Healthcare shared some sobering figures during her Keynote at the Health & Wellness Hub for Social Media Week this past Monday. Among the data points she mentioned were:
– 8000 people age in to Medicare every day
– if unchanged, healthcare costs and interest on the national debt will take up all US revenue by 2025
– a recent NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE study revealed that among determinants of health, only 10% was accounted for by actual healthcare practices ((behavior and genetics accounted for over 70%)
With figures like that, most people would want to get as far away from hard data as possible. But McCall argues that the key to big data is interpretation and with the right communications, these types of figures can be powerful drivers for change. She argues that we need to create new roles for ourselves and one of these should be a role for the pursuit of health (as opposed to traditional nomenclature/roles like “patient”). She also believes that social media can be a critical accelerator for defining these new roles.
McCall’s presentation was one of the most unique takes we’ve seen on healthcare issues in quite a while.
You can watch the LiveStream recording of her presentation here. It’s definitely worth your time and it will have you thinking differently about all the numbers that we get thrown at us on a daily basis (particularly pertaining to our health).
How is your company changing/shaping the role of the health consumer? Are you helping create a value driven model for health?