Can you handle the stream?

HealthStreaming is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. We have all kinds of streams of data that help us make decisions these days: blogs, reviews, recommendations, financial data, etc. When I look at the data we’re gathering on the health side, I see a real disconnect: its primarily billing and clinical data built for doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies rather than the information that would help me to understand and improve my health.

Its not a surprising state of affairs: the consumer is not the customer of health care today, and information is gathered to meet the needs of health insurers, employers, providers, vendors (incl. pharma) and researchers. I would assert that most of this stuff in its current form is useless to consumers.

Yet, if we want to capture the experience and personalization we see in other places in our lives, we need to create the HealthStreaming infrastructure that captures and aggregates the data that actually matters for consumers as we all make our own health choices. As we’ve seen with EMR and PHR adoption rates, platforms like Google Health or Microsoft HealthVault are unlikely to take off until the data we want to use follows us with little effort, and killer apps allow us to use them in ways that transform our lives.

So what are the pieces of data that will matter as we start HealthStreaming?

• Social activity: What are our friends eating? Where are they exercising? What treatments have alleviated their problems or made them feel better? Everyday health decisions have a huge impact…and our everyday health decisions are shaped by our social networks. Nike’s done some interesting things with Nike+ and fitness across teams starts with school sporting programs and events from marathon training to run-walks.
  
• Desired health experience: What are our preferences in a health experience? How do we make trade-offs between convenience, quick solutions, and in-depth 1 on 1 time? Do we want the world’s expert or a simple solution? Do we want the best or good enough (at a discount)? If my wife loves the gym and I’d rather play sports outside, then for the same goal, there are two very different ways we should be engaged…and companies approaching us should know this and message accordingly. My company, HealthShoppr, is focused on creating a much more targeted health experience with every appointment. Zagat’s partnership with WellPoint and BCBS MN’s The Healthcare Scoop are other entities in the space. There are, of course, a number of companies laying out the infrastructure to deliver a better experience from MinuteClinic to Myca/ Hello Health to American Well.
• Personalized health risks and solutions: Where does my health stand today? I want to know what my risks are based on my genes and my health history and activities and conditions. I also want to know what interventions or programs will make the most difference for me or solve an issue in my everyday life. Michael Roizen’s RealAge is an example of making overall risk easy to understand. Phreesia is tracking our medical history and distributing it to the point of care. On the solution side, PatientsLikeMe, DiabetesMine, Disaboom capture the wisdom of crowds from those living with a disease. Leslie Michelson (Private Health Management) is allowing individuals to buy personalized research from the world’s experts (Best Doctors has a similar service).
• Activity tracking: How many calories did I burn? How long was my training in desired zones? How many calories did I eat? Did I remember medications? When did I feel pain? What made me feel bad/ good? What’s happening as I look at specific biometrics? All of these things need to be tracked easily and recalled in a way that allows us to learn what makes a difference. People like Neal Spruce (BodyBugg/DotFit), Adam Bosworth (Keas), Nike+, FitBit, are measuring what we do. Electronics manufacturers and tech companies are helping us to record what is happening with our bodies

As we begin to utilize data coming from HealthStreaming to truly make health care consumer-centered, I believe we’ll find that most of the existing data will be supplanted by new sources more relevant to individuals and the way they live their lives (much of today’s information is heavily clinical and focused on 3rd party billing).

Where do you think the HealthStreaming opportunities will be? How will those companies look different than those in today’s Health IT community?