Enabling Healthy Decisions

A friend from Europe pinged me a few months ago to see if I wanted to connect him with someone who could distribute SAD lighting here in the US.  (SAD apparently means Seasonal Affective Disorder.)  Before even responding, I talked to a chief medical officer I know to validate the condition and the effect of lighting.

But, it made me wonder…are there some diseases that many people have to a lesser degree that we rationalize in different ways.  If people with SAD are depressed and have less energy in the winter due to lack of lighting, is this what many others simply refer to as the winter blues and just take for granted?  I can think of lots of people who are different in the dark winter months when they are inside.

For that matter, for people with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), focus is a challenge, but many of our most creative and innovative people are people who thrive in some chaotic form and come up with new ideas (e.g., story about CEO with ADD).  Do they all have ADD or some mild form of ADD?  (CBS article)

I could go on, but let’s look at one more – OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).  People with this condition can’t help themselves with certain actions – e.g., washing their hands until they bleed.  But, there are lots of people who are considered meticulous or anal retentive who get rewarded for their focus on detail and ability to do mundane tasks repeditively with little error.  Do these people have a mild form of OCD?

First, congratulations to Barack Obama on getting the nomination.  He is a great orator and regardless of who I vote for I think he will be an exciting candidate.

From a healthcare communications perspective, I found an NBC Today Show interview with Michelle Obama very interesting yesterday.  She talked about three things that seem to be telling about her personality:

• She said she was more of a fatalist than an optimist meaning that if Barack is meant to be president than he will be.
• She said she was superstitious.
• She talked about not believing that living in the White House will change their family dynamic.

So, I would suspect that trying to get her to change behavior would be very difficult as a fatalist.  If she believes that becoming sick is inevitable, why would you change your diet or habits.

If she is superstitious, I would suspect that there are actions, phrases, colors, or other queues that could encourage her to take action.  What those are…who knows?

And, if she doesn’t believe that the White House will change the family, it makes me think that she is very inwardly focused.  She admitted not watching TV or reading the paper.  But, as an ivy-league lawyer, I have to believe she does those things and reads aggressively.  So, I am confused as to why she wouldn’t believe history.  I haven’t read the history of presidential families, but I am pretty sure kids raised in the White House are very different.

My take would be that she would be a hard candidate to motivate to change and successfully communicate with.

Election campaigns typically feature pontificating politicians flashing silver bullets to painlessly slay the nation’s problems.

Just move some money from here to there, cut some government waste no one apparently ever noticed, and then fund an unattainable promise with an outlandish price tag.

Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms fit this model nicely. He bundles three evergreen feel-good concepts — electronic medical records (EMR), disease prevention and chronic-disease management — and totes up dubious savings to fund his ultimate goal of making health insurance affordable to everyone. (Article in Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

It sounds like Barack’s advisors read George Halvorson’s book on the healthcare system.  Maybe they skipped the sections on the difficulty of aligning incentives and driving change.  If he thinks he can make major changes in 4 years, good luck to him.  Maybe that is a sign of his inexperience.  I think we all want change, but we definitely need a person who understands how to make change happen given the fixed constraints that we have.

He reminds me of the new consultant who comes in fresh out of business school and sees all the changes the company should make.  They are so obvious.  But, without all the history and the ability to manipulate the political landscape and knowledge of what it takes to get things done, it just becomes the flavor of the month that no one takes seriously while they wait for the consultant to move on to their next project.

Great ideas (not that this is one) don’t by themselves guarantee success.  A good idea implemented well is a lot better than a great idea implemented poorly.

We wrapped up the road show this week in Hartford and NY.  I missed both events to be at client meetings on the west coast (and now down south).  But, one of the presenters and someone who was in the audience posted entries on their blogs about the event:

• James Taylor on his blog Smart Enough Systems
• The Interactive Snack blog

From the perspective of soliciting feedback, how many companies post their CEO’s or anybody’s real e-mail these days? Sometimes you can’t even find a number to call on the website. You simply get some generic form to fill out and get feedback. You sent it into the black hole and wonder if you’ll ever hear.

So, given Sprint’s challenges over the years, I think it was (is) a bold move to post the new CEO’s (Dan Hesse) e-mail (dan@sprint.com) at the end of some of their television commercials. I have been using Sprint as a great example of a company building loyalty because they reached out to me recently to move me to a better plan which reduced their revenue in ½. So, to test this e-mail address, I just sent the following. I will let you know what happens.

Dan (or whoever answers these for you):

I have been a loyal customer for 15 years now with Sprint PCS. I am not sure if that puts me in a minority, but I bet it does.

I was recently impressed when you guys called me to make sure I knew about the all inclusive plan (not sure of the actual name) which was something like $99 per month. Especially, since I was spending about $200 per month before. I work for a healthcare technology company and have been using that as an example about how to build loyalty.

I would be very interested (if you can share) how you guys made the decision to “down-sell” people and whether it has had the desired effect (which I assume is less churn).

The NY Times had an article about this on 6/9/08. Apparently, the initial response is an automated reply from Sprint, but most people then hear from someone on his staff (or likely a group of dedicated customer service agents) to address their questions.

“Yeah, we were worried,” said Mike Goff, vice president of advertising and marketing communications for Sprint. The company had a reputation for poor customer service, and soliciting critiques for the new chief to read was a risk. But, Mr. Goff said, Sprint wanted to “show we were serious about our intent to improve our customer service. We knew this was happening at a time when the perception of our customer service in the market was poor, so this is a chance for Dan to hear back from the market.”

The question is whether bold tactics like this can work to help change their image. If so, maybe health plans and PBMs should start posting their Chief Medical Officer, SVP of Customer Service, and CEO’s e-mails and see what happens. I can only image the look on some of their faces of doing something like this. Even though I am sure the reality is that he has a confidential e-mail address that gets used for internal purposes and personal purposes. As the Times article says, I am sure shareholders don’t want to think that the CEO sits in front of his PC all day answering questions.