Digital inclusion
ehealthcompass is tackling health inequality
“Inequality in health is the worst inequality of all. There is no more serious inequality than knowing that you’ll die sooner because you’re badly off.”
“To the extent that health care becomes a commodity it becomes distributed just like champagne. That is rich people get lots of it. Poor people don’t get any of it.”
People do not have equal access to medical care.
Those with means can typically access the services they need, but those without often go without. This observation was formally articulated by Tudor Hart in 1971 in The Lancet journal in an article called The Inverse Care Law, where the abstract starts with, “the availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the need for it in the population served.” Dr. Hart argues that traditional market forces drive an inequitable distribution of health, and governmental policies should seek to reduce such forces in the service of making healthcare accessible to everyone across a population.
We think that Digital Health technology makers also have a key role in driving more equitable distribution of healthcare.
ehealthcompass is the platform to drive digital inclusion
ehealthcompass’s proprietary technology is able to quickly understand how likely someone is to successfully adopt a Digital Health solution.
In the diagram below, about 20% of the population can use most solutions straight away, and few support resources are needed in this population. On the other end, about 30% of the population is unlikely to ever be successful with digital solutions, and expending support resources in that population is unlikely to result in a successful outcome and return.
That leaves roughly half the population that can be successful with Digital Health solutions if they have the right support. eHealthCompass is able to not only identify this group, but also understand the nature of support each unique person requires as well as the nature of technology to which he or she is best suited.
ehealthcompass Case Study
ehealthcompass enabled physicians to create pathways for patients who needed longitudinal monitoring of heart arrhythmias with the at-home technology that was a best-match for them, since each solution has trade-offs that makes it better suited for some people over others. This approach will work for any set of digital solutions in any therapeutic setting.
20% who can use technology now: This group received a monitor that connects to their cellphone. While highly cost effective and accurate, it requires the patient to be comfortable with complex functions on their cellphone. ehealthcompass identified the people who had sufficient comfort to successful use this product independently, saving significant support costs by targeting the monitor correctly.
50% who need a bit of help: Most people in this group received a standalone monitor that requires no setup but is more expensive. The remaining people in this group received the cellphone-connected monitor whose support needs were sufficiently minimal to not offset the cost savings.
30% not well suited to technology: Because this group was likely to struggle with any technology that required active engagement, ehealthcompass recommended a monitor was applied and removed at the clinic by the healthcare team and required no interaction by the patient.