Can We Use Technology To Address Gaps In Resources – YES!

Dr. Joseph Kvedar writes a great piece about the psychology of persuasion and the possibility of using technology to engage consumers and drive behavior change.  This is an important topic as we look at addressing healthcare as a country.  Since behavior and consumer choice drive a significant portion of our healthcare costs, we have to think more about how to engage patients – what is the right message?  what is the right channel?  what is the right time to deliver the message?

We can deploy technology in smarter to ways to engage consumers in new ways that leverage our limited resources in better ways – i.e., get good and scalable outcomes without increasing costs.  That is what we do everyday at Silverlink Communications with our clients whether it’s around HEDIS, adherence, condition management, or many other programs. Recently, there was an article in Time Magazine that talked about some work we did with a Medicare population for Aetna.

I also think you can look at the research Stanford has published on the topic over the past decade.  You can also look at some of the data from the CVS Caremark Pharmacy Advisor program. While it certainly showed the value of having pharmacists involved, it also showed some positive results from automation.

The reality is that combining automation and live resources can be very powerful. Technology can screen and triage people to connect the at risk population with critical resources. This can allow resources to support as many as 4x as many consumers.