brown2020

This is a short blog post on the way home from Connected Health 2009. I’m in the air on Virgin Atlantic typing on my iPhone connected to the web with inflight WiFi — that’s why it’s short and may have some typos.

First of all, Connected Health is a much bigger idea than the original idea of telemedicine, which was all about laying the painful last mile of technology to finally reach those with the greatest needs to communicate about health.

Connected Health, in contrast, is not about devices, sensors and gadgets. It is about the idea that how people connect with each other has a profound impact on health.

As Nicholas Christakis, author of “Connected”, reiterated in his keynote speech, our connections to each other, probably even more so that our connections to our doctors and nurses, has a measurable impact on our health.

Despite the big idea of connected health, too many of the Connected Health sessions followed the same format:

1. Most of the trillions in health spending is the result of chronic illness which in turn is the consequence of our lifestyle and behavior.

2. There is compelling evidence that connected health can improve quality and reduce the cost of care, referring to proactive care models that coach and monitor patients at home.

3. The only barrier to widespread adoption of a more rational model of connected care that will save our health system from impending collapse is Medicare coverage of remote health monitoring technologies.

This is the same conversation we had six years ago when we introduced the first connected health ideas as part of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. Six years later, it seemed like nothing had changed.

In fact, much has changed, and the next few years will be profoundly different than the past six. The fact is, we are all becoming connected in a tighter web of relationships enabled by technology. 300 million of us are on Facebook, maintaining a constant awareness of how our social network is faring. Soon we all will be able to keep tabs on our most important relationships on our smartphones.

When Grandma is also on Facebook, and her friends and family know how she is doing and she knows they still care, do you think there will be fewer crises that lead to hospitalization? I think so.

In a world where we can blog and tweet from an airplane while watching satellite TV, we surely have the tools to create the kind of connection that will improve healthcare. It’s going to happen, not because of policies and reimbursement, but simply because connected health is far better for everyone than isolation.

The “Share To Win” Experiment

Last month, my company sponsored a “crowdsourcing philanthropy” experiment in which we offered to donate money to causes based on their ability to rally supporters online. Our premise with the Share To Win challenge was that a cause needs two ingredients to be successful in the modern world: An idea worth spreading, and a core group of passionate people to light a fire online.

A recent Harvard study found that just 10% Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content on the popular and fast growing microblogging service. The numbers must be even more skewed when it comes to the much more involved act of traditional blogging. If you have an important idea that you want to spread, and especially if you are a non-profit cause that relies on the generosity of others to back your idea, you are going to need to have some of those Internet extroverts on your side.

The methodology of our challenge was straightforward: Anyone could nominate a cause by creating a note on 3banana.com describing why people should support their cause, and then share that note through social networks like Twitter and Facebook. The five causes that attracted the most endorsements – as measured by unique visitors who left a comment – would win our donations, a total of $10,000. The challenge would give champions an excuse to spread the word about their cause, but without asking for money – which tends to reduce the virality of any idea online. (more…)