Health Experience Reform
Reality Check: How Augmented Reality Will Impact the Customer Experience
Jan 13th
So, the Consumer Electronics Show has come and gone, but what’s the main highlight? For me, it’s the notion of Augmented Reality, or AR. While AR products will not be flying off Best Buy shelves anytime soon, I believe the term will find its way into the lexicon of homes in the next few years and have a dramatic impact on the way we consume content in the next five years. According to Gartner, it has already touched the lives of millions of people and is one of the technologies to watch right now. The dramatic success of Avatar in 3D has proven that people are hungry a dramatically different visual experience.
Difference Between Augmented and Virtual Reality
First, a little AR 101. Virtual reality is a computer generated, interactive, three-dimensional environment in which a person is totally immersed. Virtual reality systems usually involve a head mounted display worn by users (3D glasses). The user is completely immersed in an artificial world and becomes divorced from the real environment. On the other hand, augmented reality involves augmenting the real world scene so that the user keeps one foot in the real world and another in the virtual world. The virtual images are merged with the real view to create the augmented experience.
Augmented Reality Applications
In the past year, the rapid evolution of AR has contributed to breakthrough digital marketing campaigns for Nike, Coca-Cola and McDonalds; AR Avatar toys for Mattel (said CNET, “I’ve seen the future of toys and it’s augmented reality”); social media applications for Kia; AR entertainment promotions for Paramount’s Transformers and Star Trek; AR consumer packaged goods campaigns for Procter & Gamble; AR in publishing with InStylemagazine — even an AR attraction at Six Flags Great Adventure theme park.
But the perfect AR tool may be right in your hand. A recent iPhone App from Acrossair lets you interactively access names and places of anywhere you are just by using your iPhone and its AR application. But applications such as this, are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AR. Imagine the following AR uses:
- Healthcare: Pre-operative imaging studies, such as CT or MRI scans, of the patient often provide the surgeon with the necessary view of the internal anatomy. From these images the surgery is planned. Visualization of the path through the anatomy to the affected area where, for example, a tumor must be removed is done by first creating a 3D model from the multiple views and slices in the preoperative study. Augmented reality can be applied so that the surgical team can see the CT or MRI data correctly registered on the patient in the operating theater while the procedure is progressing. Being able to accurately register the images directly on the patient, rather than some artificial 3D environment, will enhance the performance of the surgical team.
- Advertising: Some advanced billboard companies have developed augmented reality systems that allows broadcasters to insert ads into specific areas of the broadcast image. Imagine while broadcasting a baseball game this system would be able to place an advertisement in the image so that it appears on the outfield wall of the stadium. The electronic billboard requires calibration to the stadium by taking images from typical camera angles and zoom settings in order to build a map of the stadium including the locations in the images where advertisements will be inserted. Now imagine that these images can be dynamically generated for targeted advertising to the viewers.
- Maintenance: When your car breaks down, the mechanic approaches a new or unfamiliar part. Instead of opening several repair manuals he could put on an augmented reality display and the image of the part that needs to be fixes would be augmented with annotations and information pertinent to the repair.
- Home Design: So you want to put a new addition on the house but you want to know exactly what you’re getting for the $30,000 you are willing to dish out. AR would allow you to bring a video tape of your house shot from various angles, then in real time it would augment that view to show the new deck in its finished form. Or bring in a tape of your current kitchen and the augmented reality processor would replace your current kitchen cabinetry with virtual images of the new kitchen that you are designing.
While AR is a novelty advertising vehicle right now, it holds the promise to dramatically increase the quality and value of the products and services we consume. So get ready to go beyond virtual. It’s a brave, new, augmented world out there.
Who’s Talking Health Experience Reform?
Nov 18th
While there is a lot of fire and fury over healthcare reform (public option vs. no public option), I haven’t heard a lot of debate over “Health Experience Reform” (with “care” intentionally taken out). What’s the difference? Healthcare Reform involves the politics of healthcare – expanding coverage, regulating insurance companies that deny pre-existing conditions, creating insurance exchanges and deciding on whether a public option would kick in if the private sector failed to address customer needs. However, little if any of this will significantly transform the way customers, patients, doctors and nurses interact and engage.
Health Experience Reform means transforming our collective attitudes, expectations and interactions when it comes to our own health. Case in point: I recently implemented an outreach campaign for a client who was experiencing a dramatic drain on it Emergency Department resources from patients with non-emergent conditions. Analysis yielded a startling result – 5 patients with non-emergent conditions represented nearly 400 visits to the ED resulting in nearly $700,000 in care. To help educate the community, we implemented a campaign to educate consumers to “know where to go” – their doctor, express care, or the emergency department. As healthcare access points expand, consumers need to be educated on the most appropriate place for their care. Also, patients often go to the ED for basic care because they don’t have a primary care physician. Unless we address this issue through recruiting, incentives, nurse practitioners, and 1-800 Get-A-Doc campaigns, expanded coverage will not equal access.
Health Experience Reform means:
1) A patient/customer never has to provide the same information twice during the course of their care (proper implementation of electronic health records)
2) A patient/customer has a personal relationship with their care provider
3) A patient/customer never has to be made aware of the distinction between clinic and hospital
4) A patient should be able to get a bill that is accurate and understandable
5) A patient is empowered with the information and tools to manage his/her own health.
One company, Hello Health, is going down the path of Health Experience Reform by simply going around the system (and it’s linked into Google Health). The process is simple:
If large healthcare organizations and billions of dollars in government funding don’t address the need for Health Experience Reform, start-up companies like Hello Health just may disrupt the system. Stay tuned.
Thriving vs. Fixing: Balance is key in healthcare branding
Nov 15th
When talking brand experience in healthcare there are always two competing elements: Preventative “Health” vs. Accute “Care”. Kaiser Permanente’s successful “Thrive” campaign focuses on the importance of helping their customers and patients maintain healthy vibrant lives. The multi-pronged branding effort has become a successful viral campaign on YouTube and has helped raise awareness for the 35-hospital organization. More locally, BJC has recently launched a grass-roots branding campaign that latches on the healthcare reform initiative, labeled “Making Medicine Better”. Both campaigns are equally viable and point out the unique challenges for healthcare marketers in today’s environment. Depending on their level of need (recently diagnosed cancer patient vs. consumer looking for health education and convenient access), the Patient/Customer experience expectations can vary a great deal. Healthcare organizations need to balance the “thriving” and “fixing” messages based on their target audience. However, one thing is for sure: Branding claims compared to the actual customer experience will be “outed” by the Patient/Customer faster than ever. It’s a brave new world in health branding where customer engagement can showcase customer enragement if quality, coordinated, personal care is not delivered.