The day before my daughter Elise’s 15th birthday, the new iPhone went on sale.  My birthday was 4 days later.  So Elise figured out we should buy each other an iPhone to mark our big days.  She planned (and saved) for months.  She spent weeks talking to friends, researching apps on line, planning for such accessories as protective covers, and educating herself on how to maximize her minutes.

When the big day came, we made our way to the Apple store and stood shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others waiting on a very long line.  Two and a half hours later we were invited, actually escorted, in to the store by an extremely friendly, knowledgeable young man who stayed with us during the entire purchase transaction.

He answered tons of questions (mine, not Elise’s…she already knew everything), politely reviewed various functions with me (Elise was extremely patient during this process), and made great suggestions about which plan was best for us.

While we were waiting on line, I looked around at the people waiting with us–we were an extremely diverse group–and wondered (a) Why in the world were we all willing to wait hours to buy a telephone, a very expensive telephone?  (b) How did the folks at Apple get us to this point? and (c) What lessons could we take away and apply to health care?

Here’s what I came up with:

Cool. The iPhone is not your mother’s rotary dial wall phone.  The engineers and creative types figured out how to make a very uncool, but necessary, object not only aesthetically pleasing, edgy, and fun, but useful, convenient, and easy to use.  They stimulated demand.

Now if the Apple  folks could only do for colonoscopies what they did for telephones.  I am only half joking.  How do we make taking care of ourselves and our loved ones cool?  How do we make boring, sometimes not so pleasant preventive measures cool and edgy?

Hospitals are scary places–while some newer facilities have made efforts to look more appealing (open atriums with green trees, brighter colors and lighting), many are dark, smell strange, are old and creaky, have tons of frightening tubes, machines, noises, and for most people are places to be feared and avoided.

What amenities can be added to make it harder for patients to find excuses not to get that mammogram (valet parking, anyone?), not to go for that follow up, not to just give up and leave after waiting for two and a half hours in the waiting room (Elise and I waited that long–and the friendly folks at Apple handed out water, and updated us on our progress).  The only water I could find in my local hospital emergency room last week (when we were there with my son) was a nasty water fountain that had stuff in it that would make a petri dish cringe.  There were vending machines with chips, candy and soda, but it was broken.

Service. Imagine for a minute that when you enter a clinic, doctor’s office, or hospital, you are accompanied by a knowledgeable, helpful, pleasant individual who can speak to you in a non-condescending, judgmental manner, in language that you understand.  Someone who can help you navigate a complex system of decision making.

Quality. Pretty obvious attribute.  Quick–think Mayo, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins.  What is it about these institutions that people think of when asked to list “best” hospitals.  How do you (should you?) rate different doctors? Nurses?  Most people buy the iPhone because they believe they are buying a high quality product.  How can we be sure we are buying high quality health care?

It’s interesting when you look at the literature.  Quality is defined in many different ways by health care professionals and by patients.  Sure there’s overlap.  But in addition to better health outcomes, living longer and better–patients highly rank items such as convenience, hours of operation, waiting times, and location as quality indicators.  Apple stores have better hours than most clinics and physician offices.  My dog’s vet has better hours than most doctors.

Value. Why was a 15 year old willing to save her hard earned money for an expensive phone (and why was I willing to pay not insignificant monthly charges) for the iPhone?  Because we thought it was worth it.

If only we could figure out a way to get people to see that it’s worth it to exercise, eat healthy, get annual check ups, not smoke… and get that colonoscopy.

Related posts:

1. Why The iPad Is Not Ready For Prime Time in Healthcare
2. Ctrl-Alt-Delete Sugar. But how?
3. Solutions To Scale: Proven Health Care Models for Primetime
4. Blog Roundup: Health IT, Urgency, practicality, and costs of health care reform
5. Now You See Them…Now You Don’t: Health Care Transitions for Young Adults with Chronic Medical Conditions and Disabilities

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 8th, 2009 at 9:03 pm and is filed under Consumer Health Care, HIT/Health Gaming, Innovation, Quality, Technology, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.