MS-Digital Innovation in Marketing

Personal Health Records (PHR) were the “next big thing” when I worked on a major health insurer a decade ago. Needless to say, reality took a bit longer to catch up to the promise.

I hear you on the concern about health data being stored online. It’s certainly uncomfortable in some aspects. That said, PII (personally identifiable information) brings with it a host of regulation and severe penalties for violation. Working with many health systems, I can tell you confidently that most will not let anyone come anywhere near their operational data.

The idea here was to democratize your health. Improving the UX by minimizing time on site is part of it, but the bigger idea was that it should empower you to seek better care as its easier to transfer a file “between” patient portals than transferring a physical file between offices.

Has anyone had experience moving their records between providers? Having a hospital access their primary’s records more easily?

Please do not share too much personal details. Mainly curious to hear of digitizing data has improved your experience.

I loved reading you post Janice. I am a big person for virtual appointments and health portals. I think in todays day in age with the world being full of technology, I don’t think that this is ever going away. I really think that is all depends on how you look at technology and how you approach it. You could love the idea of patient portals or you could hate it and I it is all preference and the way you approach it.

Hi Janice, great post.
After reading your article I think that for me, I personally really enjoy the ability to have all this information at my fingertips since when it comes to medical information, I am pretty useless. I bring this up because I am blessed to have a mother who is a nurse is understands all this medical information.
As I have gotten older and with COVID having my mom come to the doctors with me had become less frequent than when I was younger. Sharing this information with my mom has made it easier for her to help me understand what medicine I’m provided, what side effects to look for, and having someone in my corner to stand up for me even though I could share this information without using the portal before its a lot easier to have everything in one digital location that has everything written down (so I don’t mispronounce any medication names) and kept on file.

Hi Janice,

I think you offer valid concerns about how this new technology could add an additional barrier for older patients who likely need the most care. When I read your post, I thought about my grandfather who answers every single call that he gets from Maryland just in case it’s me because he doesn’t know how to save my number (I promise I’ll show him how to do it next time I visit. I always forget). I’m certain filling out information online would be much more of a hassle for him that just going in and filling out written paper work. However, for Millennials and Gen Z, this is a God send. I don’t miss filling out written paperwork and I think the pandemic definitely expanded the use of online portals. I love that we’re using less paper, i.e. saving trees. I think it’s easily to forget about the data security component. I certainly wouldn’t want information about my health getting into the wrong hands but in my opinion, less hassle is worth the risk.

Disney generally hits the mark, despite my intense dislike for Be Out Guest.

That being said, the lesson I hope you all take from here is that a good idea on paper does not always equate to a good idea in practice. To the Imagineer who envisioned the ultimate dining experience, this was a slam dunk. To the people paying for that experience, maybe less so.

This is why I have stressed anchoring in your customer’s POV. When you “live” in their world, you see things differently than the vacuum of the lab / your imagination.

After Covid-19, markets shifted into the world of contactless everything! We now can order food and have it dropped off at our houses without one human to human interaction. Even with QR codes, the need for a server to bring one menu’s seems obsolete and bypassed the need to use a paper menu that someone else used that day. It seems as Disney has taken it a step further and is diminishing the need for both employees and human interactions with everything being automated before hand and with a wristband.

While the technology is great, dealing with human imperfections is will always be what slows it down. I believe Tesla is having somewhat of the same problem when automated cars are having trouble accounting for human errors. It seems as if the unpredictableness of humans still posses as a problem for even the smartest of computers. But we are definitely getting closer!

Hi Professor Ebbecke,

It’s a bummer that this didn’t work, it’s such a great idea. That’s the thing with technology is when it works, it’s great but when it doesn’t, it can be disastrous. I think it’s important for technology to always be able to take human error into account, like being late. They can put something in place where if families are late, they unfortunately lose their reservation. But they have to make sure this is communicated effectively during booking. Many restaurants do this, and I think it’s fair. The kinks can still be worked out. I don’t think all is lost here. They need to work on constantly improving based on issues reported by customers and staff. Any new adopter, when it comes to technology, should expect that they may be the guinea pigs as developers are likely still working out some of the kinks.