Since the 1970’s our population has faced an increasing number of chronic health concerns. Many of these have been related to lifestyle choices that lead to the most common non-communicable diseases, including obesity, physical inactivity, sexual behavior, and substance use (tobacco, alcohol, and drugs). During this time, these “lifestyle diseases” have been addressed by looking at personal choices, behavior, and responsibilities. Recent research though suggests that an individual’s actions are strongly influenced by their own physical and social surroundings. Many of these studies have shown that alterations in one’s environment may be an effective tool for changes in behavior.

Digital Health has been a hot market space in recent times with investors collectively pouring $26 billion since 2010 and over $7.2 billion just last year.  Mobile health or mHealth apps were seen as a crucial element in managing chronic conditions like diabetes and asthma, by helping patients take care of their lifestyle and medications.  In fact, mHealth Apps were the largest funded category in digital health, with over 325,000 apps available by end of 2017.   

Imagine a patient just diagnosed with a life-changing chronic illness such as diabetes, arthritis, asthma or a combination of these illnesses. A patient’s knowledge might range from complete unfamiliarity on these conditions or just a basic understanding from episodic visits to the clinic. And in most cases, patients have lots of questions that go unanswered like how it will change their daily routine? What therapies are best for them? Are there any clinical programs they can be part of?

Only 10% of health is determined by care received at a doctor's office. Other factors like economic stability, residential environment, education, food, and community play a significant role in health outcomes. Individual behavior, including, where we live, what we do for a living, and what services we have access to make up 60% of our health. Clinical advice when combined with focus on individual behavior and social factors can result in superior health outcomes.

Industries that have matured on managing customer satisfaction, like airlines or retail, understand that expectations around service quality, delivered quality and communication are key drivers of consumer satisfaction.  One mantra that has become universal is - small variations in delivered quality can result in significant differences in satisfaction/complaints, depending on how expectations and communication are managed. 

In healthcare, the availability of new data sets (variety) and the pace at which the data changes (velocity) is driving the rapid adoption of Big Data techniques.  New data sets from social patient reviews, physician payments, sensor/ personal medical devices, and patient behavior are leading the change. 

View this infographic to learn more about how data and analytics can help improve health literacy

Adoption of digital technologies has been more rapid in industries such as retail, financial services, and media than in the Healthcare and Life Sciences (HLS) industries. Mobile and social communications, analytics, cloud computing and the Internet of things are just a few of the technologies that can make a big impact in how HLS organizations go to market faster, engage with patients better or transform their healthcare programs.

According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, only 12 percent of adults in the U.S. have proficient health literacy. In terms of numbers, that is nine out of ten adults who lack the skills needed to manage their health and prevent disease. Low literacy has been linked to poor health outcomes such as higher rates of hospitalization and less frequent use of preventive services, which leads to higher healthcare costs. This is especially troubling for individuals over the age of 65 because they have low health literacy, live on a fixed budget and Medicare doesn’t pay for all the costs.

Pharmaceutical companies rely on closed loop marketing to drive sales, but without a DataOps platform, the real time data and collaboration that is required makes closed loop marketing nearly impossible to achieve.