We’ve witnessed disruptions across various industries and watched how once-powerful brands – like Kodak or Blockbuster, for example – have fallen due to lack of innovation or change to meet consumer demand. Today, modern technology has armed consumers with information right at their fingertips, resulting in shifting expectations – particularly when it comes to health care. This has caused waves of transformation throughout the health care industry.
As health care organizations consider how to adapt to consumer demand, it’s important that we’re considering all angles and understanding who the different health care consumers are. At Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, the pediatric health system has two consumers: the patient and the patient’s caretakers.
In this episode of The Cerner Podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Laura Fitzmaurice, the chief medical information officer and associate executive medical director at Children’s Mercy. Dr. Fitzmaurice discusses how pediatric medicine is evolving in the face of health care consumerism.
Dr. Fitzmaurice answers the following questions:
- The phrase "health care consumerism" is a fairly ubiquitous buzzword in the industry today – let’s unpack that a little. How would you define health care consumerism, and how is this concept different at a pediatric hospital?
- The modern consumer wants convenience, competitive prices and the best quality in the products and services they buy. From your perspective, are consumers of health care the same as consumers in any other industry? What differences in considerations might there be?
- How do you think consumers of pediatric health care differ from consumers who, for the most part, control their own health care decisions?
- How is health care evolving to meet the needs of pediatric consumers, both patients and caretakers, and what should we be doing more of to increase patient engagement?
- Looking to the future, how do you see consumer engagement evolving in the health care industry, and specifically in pediatric health care, over the next 3-5 years?
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