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Healthcare consumers: How psychographic research can help drive behavior change

Here is how healthcare used to work. Every year your employer’s HR representative called a […]

Here is how healthcare used to work.

Every year your employer’s HR representative called a meeting to let you know what your limited options were for coverage this year based on your circumstances. If you got married or had a child in the previous year, Plan A is probably best for you. If you have no dependents, Plan B will work. Plan C handled all the rest. Rinse and repeat. Every year. It was handled.

Fast forward to today, and we see a brave new world of healthcare developing where accountability is paramount, the patient as consumer rules, and individuals – not employers – are responsible choosing their own insurance plan. Reimbursement to health care providers, for services provided to certain patient populations, is tied to medical outcomes and patient satisfaction.

The main driver of these changes has come from Washington. Millions of people in the United States now have health insurance available to them under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This has led healthcare organizations to react with urgency. The captive audience of employees is no longer a sure thing. Now, meeting their goals depend upon patient perceptions and behavior. An inability to drive meaningful behavior change is a major issue.

Medicine can look to leading consumer products companies, connecting with patients’ emotions, to communicate more effectively and drive desired behaviors. I grew up in marketing at P&G, where our mantra, coined by CEO A.G. Lafley, was “the Consumer is Boss.” We conducted extensive market research and let consumer insights drive our strategies and advertising. This enables P&G to sell premium products in highly competitive categories. In the healthcare division, we used these same methods to develop more effective patient engagement programs.

Despite years of effort and millions of dollars spent on education and disease management, the average rate for medication compliance is around 50 percent across health conditions. This helps support the notion that, perhaps, medicine could benefit from adopting more consumer-centric methods that appeal to patients’ motivations.

This isn’t about throwing more information and education at patients. According to research by Johns Hopkins’ schools of Public Health and Medicine, 53 percent of physicians are overweight or obese. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that a quarter of Licensed Practical Nurses smoke. If the most informed and educated people regarding health struggle to maintain healthy habits, how is the average patient expected to do any better?

Of course, marketing methods are not a replacement for medical practice and care delivery. This is about augmenting traditional approaches with consumer insights. Market research on patient preferences and optimal message delivery can help drive patient activation, in addition to improving overall communication efforts.

Healthcare providers have a wealth of Big Data regarding patient activity within the system, but this tells what patients are doing, not why they are doing it. Consumer insights can provide the context missing in medical records, and complement current approaches in patient engagement.

Psychographic research can be a powerful tool for understanding patient motivations and influences. Psychographics unveil a person’s values, personality and attitudes, and help answer “why” a person makes a choice or behaves in a certain way.

Even the federal government is recognizing the potential for consumer-centric approaches in health care. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also explored psychographics, building health status into their model. For example, they identified one segment as “Healthy & Young.” However, healthy, young people are a diverse population with varying motivations. This may also conflict with the ACA, which seeks to discourage insurers from competing for the healthiest participants and avoiding those in worse health.

Having data-driven, patient insights that can trigger behavior change, regardless of health status, can be very useful for health care providers. Such a model could avoid adverse selection, appeal to consumers’ preferences and motivations, and strengthen patient engagement.

Healthcare will continue to evolve under the ACA, and where there is disruption there is opportunity. Health care providers who innovate, embrace consumerism and keep people healthy are the ones who will be prepared to thrive as the game continues to change.


Brent Walker

Brent Walker is the Chief Marketing Officer of c2b solutions, which helps organizations enhance their health care strategies and initiatives through proprietary consumer insights and proven marketing methods.

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