Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Tom Abshire, Senior VP of Products, Marketing and Member Engagement, Virgin HealthMiles (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What I see in this whole mobile world is – all of the things that you’ve said are true – is the notion of access and who delivers health care. In a way, with mobile phones and mobile devices, even in the most remote places in the world, given that mobile networks have made such incredible headway in penetrating those parts of the world, you can actually get the same information on reference material. You probably know a fellow technology called Epocrates, right?

Tom Abshire: Yes.

SM: These are essentially physician reference materials, but in a way, even if there are no physicians in those remote parts of the world, people who are willing and able to digest some of this information, especially about common diseases, common ailments, can administer a fair amount of treatment just by using referenced content. It’s not exactly rocket science.

TA: Yes. That’s similar to what our view has been. One of the principles we’ve tried to instill in the way we provide information and content in our program is this idea of science made simple. One of the challenges and frustrations that I feel is that too often, especially if you’re looking at popular media, there are things that we should or shouldn’t do from a health standpoint, and it’s pretty confusing. What we’ve tried to do is figure out how to keep things simple, straightforward and easy to understand.

SM: I’m totally on board with you, but I’m talking about open opportunities of how to leverage cloud computing and social media and the reach of mobile in the current technological landscape or even societal landscape. How can the problem of health care find interesting innovative solutions through information technology?

One of the open problems I see is that healthcare has still not penetrated the masses. There is a very large number of people in the seven billion population of the world who have no health care.

TA: Right. I think, from our perspective, a lot of our focus is on disease prevention. That’s where I think good health care starts. If you look at the Western nations and what we’ve done, we’ve spent a lot of money on addressing disease, but we haven’t spent nearly as much on solving those precursor conditions. We looked at growing global issues like obesity or type 2 diabetes. Good prevention could solve a lot of problems that health care is asked to solve in the future.

For example, with type 2 diabetes, if you meet the basic minimum guidelines for physical activity, which is being active for about 150 minutes a week, you’re going to reduce your risk of diabetes by 50%. If you eat a low-sugar diet, an appropriate diet to prevent diabetes, you can reduce your risk of diabetes by 30%. If you take even the simple ideas of get good exercise, eat right, don’t smoke, from key diseases like type 2 diabetes to coronary artery disease to breast and colon cancer, you can reduce your risk of those diseases by 90%. That’s the part of health care we’re trying to make a statement on. If you don’t reduce the demand for health care, then the cost of services just have to naturally increase as go along.

SM: Yes. What I’m observing is that there are huge populations of people in the emerging markets, in Asia, Latin America, and Africa where mobile has reached these people, but health care has not really reached these people. And what I’m saying is there are open opportunities for entrepreneurs to use the power of mobile applications and mobile content to address some of these, with simple tips like what you’re talking about across a variety of common diseases where in some cases, the nutrition needs to be watched, and in some cases, the exercise needs to watched. In some cases, there is common stuff, whether it’s stomach problems or whether it’s cold and flu. Those really do not need doctors to be treated. They can be treated by my mother, for instance. She has a pretty good vocabulary on homeopathy. She knows all the common medications for all the common, day-to-day illnesses. She doesn’t need to go to a doctor; she just uses them.

TA: I think we’re on a similar path there. To me, the opportunity is to go in these countries, and you can jump to the end state, in which you have a sick population. There are certain diseases that you’re not going to prevent, that have other sources such as water quality and those kinds of things. And education there is important. I guess my proposition was you can focus on a few simple things, and if you have elements of education and knowing what you need to do in a simple form, and the feedback loops of knowing whether you’re achieving your goals, then all of a sudden, you’re closer to this notion of self-management or self-care. Putting together the knowledge and the feedback loops are the way that we’ll be able to make those really long-term behavioral choices that will keep us from getting certain diseases. Often times, those behavioral choices can support other diseases that you haven’t mentioned. We talk about the quality of water, food quality, cleanliness, those kinds of things. Those can be addressed by behaviors to some extent as well.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Tom Abshire, Senior VP of Products, Marketing and Member Engagement, Virgin HealthMiles
1 2 3 4 5