CDHC – Success or Failure

It is probably too early to make any decisions here around Consumer Driven Healthcare (CDHC), but I enjoyed an entry on Matt Winn’s blog Punctuative about this (see entry).  A quote I especially like is:

If I were a product manager in any other industry and saw scores this low in customer satisfaction and understanding, I’d be thinking of pulling that product from the shelves or retooling it,” says David Guilmette, managing director of Towers Perrin’s health-care consulting practice.

I believe a big issue here is communications.  Patients suffer from too many healthcare communications and too much healthcare information which is delivered to them in ineffective mediums (e.g., letters that happen two weeks (or more) after the event) using confusing language and ask them to jump through hoops.  CDHC (and healthcare in general) will be much more successful when companies embrace a CPG (consumer packaged goods) approach to driving behavior.  I am working with a client right now that has had some great successes in this area and which has some great idea.  It is worth your time to look at them if you operate in this space as an HR director, a managed care company, a pharmacy benefit manager, or even a healthcare provider.  The company is Silverlink.