When we talk about health consumerism or the consumerization of health, the topic encompasses a lot of disparate ideas. In her new book Health Consuming: From Health Consumer to Health Citizen, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, a health economist with a 30-year background in the space, seeks to tie those ideas into one cohesive narrative — and to follow that narrative to see where it leads into our future.
The...
Digital health interventions have tremendous potential to help vulnerable and underserved populations, but they're rarely suited for those populations out of the box, according to a new California HealthCare Foundation report authored by Health Populi blogger Jane Sarasohn-Kahn. Instead, digital health developers need to consider the particular needs of low-income, low-literacy, ESL, and Medicaid...
In a new report from the California HealthCare Foundation, the report's author, health economist and consultant Jane Sarasohn-Kahn concludes that while the increasing amount of consumer wellness and fitness data collected today has a lot of value for personalized healthcare, it also presents new risks for consumer privacy.
For one thing, as healthcare moves out of the hospital and onto the wrist...
SuperBetter, a popular health and wellness game.
Three trends are driving players in the healthcare space -- especially insurers -- toward gamification, according to a recent report by consulting firm ICF International: the trend toward value-based care, the increasing role of the patient as consumer, and the millennial generation as desirable health insurance customers. A fourth trend, the...
The Misfit Shine is an example of a partially passive wearable sensor.
The future of sensors won't be handheld devices like Star Trek's tricorder. It will be invisible sensors in your shoes, floorboards, and cars that quietly collect your health data, analyze it, and alert you, your doctor, or your loved ones only when something goes wrong. That's the prediction in "Making Sense of Sensors: How...
This fall Target plans to stock mobile health coaching devices from SmartCoach on its store shelves. Toronto-based MyTrak Health System, a business unit of Medipattern, inked the deal with Target last month, according to the company.
SmartCoach is a wearable mobile health device that aims to differentiate itself with a coaching service that not only tracks activity levels but also monitors...
By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn
More than 85 percent of the world’s population is covered by wireless phone signals. The global proliferation of wireless phones provides a technology platform to move health services to people — broadly referred to as ”mobile health” or “mhealth.” mHealth: New Horizons for health through mobile technologies, the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) second report on mobile...
This week during a panel focused on mobile health apps at the South By South West (SXSW) event in Austin, Texas, the four panelists offered up a handful of "landmines" that are currently embedded in the way developers and service providers are approaching mobile health.
The session was titled: Health -- Is there really an app for that? and it was moderated by Edelman's Gigi Peterkin and included...
Last April we published a list of "five must-read mobile health reports" that were free to anyone to download. The list was an instant hit and in recent weeks I have had requests from a number of people for a refreshed list. As of March 2011, there have been four free, must-read mHealth reports by my count -- and together they do a fine job of encapsulating a good portion of the mHealth...
This week I presented as part of the Mobile Health track at the ePatients Connections conference in Philadelphia. The track's chair was the inimitable Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, a noted health economist and commentator. Sarasohn-Kahn kicked off the afternoon with a sweeping presentation that covered a number of important aspects of the mobile health landscape. Below are a few excerpts from her...
