New Report on Digital Health Technology for the Underserved

A new report from Jane Sarasohn-Kahn for the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF.org), Digitizing the Safety Net: Health Tech Opportunities for the Underserved, canvasses the digital health technology landscape through the lens of connecting healthcare to social determinants of health (SDOH). In Jane’s inimitable style, she combines reviews of some notable digital health solutions with analysis of the key drivers of this emerging area. (Note, in my last blog I named Brian Ahier and Lisa Suennen as two of the best analysts & writers in healthcare; Jane is the beacon who sets the standard so that others of us aim high!)

Three key trends shine through for me:

• Encouraging signs of consumer marketing best practices are beginning to appear in healthcare marketing (e.g., understand your audience; segment the market & match the message to the segment; use technology that is appropriate for the segment)

• Recognition by the medical community that social determinants of health (SDOH) play a significant role in health and health maintenance.

• Change in payment models from fee-for-service to models that reward patient-centric care coordination is the ultimate driver of change in healthcare.

I highly recommend reading and bookmarking this report, which is available for download here:

http://www.chcf.org/publications/2016/02/digitizing-safety-net

Follow Jane on her blog, http://healthpopuli.com/, on Twitter @healthythinker and as part of the Social Media Ambassador list for the upcoming HIMSS conference, #HIMSS16 https://twitter.com/HIMSS/lists/himss16-sm-ambassadors.