It’s no secret that the world is changing at an increasingly rapid pace. But for those of us in healthcare, it would be easy to think that things haven’t changed all that much. The doctors and insurance companies still have the lion’s share of the knowledge, power, data and money, and patients have to fend for themselves.
But things are changing . . . and they’re changing faster than most people realize. Wired magazine ran an interesting mini-feature contrasting the BMI of the average American woman vs. a rather unrealistic “female ideal” [OK, it was Playboy centerfolds]. As you might imagine, the two diverge rapidly over time. And the fact is that our current health system was really set up to handle acute care (see Michael Porter) . . . Uncle Jeb dropped the plow on his foot; Sally Jane got smallpox – better go see the sawbones. But today, our system is drowning under a tidal wave of chronic care needs, 70% of which are driven by individual behaviors. We’ve already mentioned the cost of obesity in this space, so I won’t belabor the point here.
The point I WILL belabor here (and you knew there had to be one, didn’t you?) is that the way we think about designing for health hasn’t kept pace with people’s needs. Given the massive need to deal with chronic care, it’s no wonder that 99.7% of the healthcare system is focused on improving it, and reducing the cost of doing so. I suppose that’s as it should be; the people in the direst need are the ones that should get most of the attention. But given that so many of them are there at least in part because of the choices they’ve made, shouldn’t more of us be focused on those choices?
I know what you’re going to say . . . there are a TON of people focused on changing health behavior. And they are – they have been for years. In fact, this very innovation center was talking about changing health behavior when I joined up at Humana almost 5 years ago. But it hasn’t helped much – the problems continue to get worse, at an ever faster rate. Which is why we’re operating under the following hypothesis:
CHANGING Health Behavior
Once it became clear that our lifestyles were the primary cause for our chronic unhealthiness, the health system started looking for ways to “change health behavior.” And when someone in the health system starts talking about health behavior change, my ears prick up, because it’s generally code for, “I’m going to try and get you to do something that I think is good for you.” And it typically involves drowning me in information – most of which isn’t relevant to me, and none of which I’m actually seeking. This is where most of the health system is today.
Making HEALTHY stuff more fun
After a while some folks started figuring out that force-feeding information to people – and telling them to change what they were doing – wasn’t really getting the job done. So, they trotted out the old behavior change pig, applied some lipstick, and presented it anew. Most folks who are selling wellness programs and building catch-the-fruit type games have reached this level. It is more appealing, and it probably helps more people, but the problems still haven’t been fixed. At its core, it’s still asking people to change their lives . . . which I believe is a losing proposition more often than not. A catch-the-fruit game is still just trying to force-feed me information about nutrition, and it’s not really all that engaging.
Making FUN stuff healthier
It’s a subtle distinction, this transposition of two words. But there is a world of difference in the design outputs once you’ve made the switch. Our hypothesis is that the only way to really reach people is to go where they already are. To look at what they already do, care about and enjoy – and make it a little healthier. Or even better, help them to do it better or more often because they’re a little healthier. The reason it’s so different is because it’s not asking people to change their lives. And we think that’ll make an enormous difference in terms of the uptake and stickiness of our products.
How has this manifested itself? Well, in 2008 it looked a lot like bikesharing . The one overwhelming thing we’ve heard from our riders is that they’d forgotten how much fun biking really is. Look for bikesharing in a city near you from bcycle .
In 2009, Making Fun Stuff Healthy looks like Games . In addition to our first facebook game and our first casual game , our signature Horsepower Challenge will launch in 20 cities in the US this spring – reaching 2,000 kids and their families. In 2010, it’s my dearest hope that you’ll see fun and healthy stuff injected into social networks on a scale that’s never been seen before.
The point is this: The majority of the healthcare system is devoted to improving chronic care – and that’s as it should be. But the rest of us are ready for a social movement in health just like the ones we’ve seen in other industries – media, retail, advertising, music, TV, etc. We’re going to continue to make products, services, businesses and networks that we hope will feed that revolution.
And we’d love for you to be a part of it. If you’re into changing the world through health and happiness, join our CrumpleItUp Innovation Network on LinkedIn.
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