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.