2019 and Beyond for Patient Education
San Fransisco, CA. Jan. 3, 2019 — How Omada, Virta, BD Briight, BlueStar and Sweetch are changing the culture of patient education.
This article is about how companies like Omada, Virta, BD Briight, BlueStar and Sweetch understand a simple principle outlined in Seth Godin’s new book This is Marketing and how that principle applies to the future (and really the now) of patient education in healthcare.
12% of people have proficient health literacy. — CDC
Why is this important? Nearly 90% of people do not have the baseline knowledge required for preventing or managing a chronic disease like diabetes.
The old way of doing patient education is not working and the proof is in the numbers. It’s time to shift the culture.
Innovative chronic disease management programs are shifting the culture from how patient education has been done in the past, to how it will be done in the future. Possibly by complete accident, these companies also align with a method of marketing that Seth Godin states is key to understand.
Seth Godin has a reputation that requires no real selling. If you have any interest in marketing or getting people to do things like engaging with health and wellness programs offered to them by their employers…then he is a good guy to learn from.
In his new book, he talks about what he calls pattern matching and pattern interruption. The basic principle is that people are already doing things on a daily basis. You can either align with what they already do, or you can try to interrupt their patterns and create change.
Obviously, interrupting a pattern is hard but in the current patient education status quo, this is what we do with classes, phone calls, handouts, or long articles. We attempt to interrupt patterns.
The secret is that even when an organization like Facebook, Slack, or Instagram creates interruption at scale, they always start with matching. For more details check out Seth’s new book This is Marketing.
So how are companies like Omada, Virta, BD Briight, BlueStar and Sweetch using pattern matching to educate patients?
These companies understand what the user is already doing with their free time. Then they match that pattern.
When it comes to consuming educational information, users prefer bite-sized videos they can watch on their phone. 1–2 minute, aesthetically pleasing, and entertaining videos. Did I mention it’s not just the younger generations? Baby Boomers prefer video over any other source of information including infographics, images, or blogs.
So what does this mean for the future of population health literacy? Or the future of how patients will become educated about their health? Both how to prevent complications, and manage certain conditions while living a culturally and socially demanding lifestyle?
We can quickly look at major consumer products like the Google Home, Facebook Portal, and Amazon Alexa to understand that video will be involved.
Want to learn more about what type of video is most successful for health education? Check out this post about some innovative YouTube Channels and the not so innovative Diabetes Self-Management Education Program.
Feel free to contact me to discuss anything animated videos for patient education!
Thank you for reading.
Miguel
Contact: Miguel.johns@kingfit.io
