By Joseph Kvedar
In a world where most folks change jobs every couple of years, people are often amazed to hear that I started work in connected health 19 years ago. Implicit in their amazement is a question, “Why did you stick with it so long?” The quickest response is that the work we started back then is not yet finished. ..
One of the insights from this early work was the power of feedback loops. ..
We began to design programs around the idea that objective, numeric feedback is an important part of connected health program success. The development of wireless sensors, mobile apps and shared APIs created a technical infrastructure that allows us to easily gather numeric data from our patients and feed it back to them as well as to a clinician. We showed great success with this method in hypertension and diabetes....
We continue to observe, to learn and to adapt our thinking, as most recently as this past week. I was chatting with a friend the other day and she confided in me that she is underwhelmed by the use of tracking as a method for healthcare improvement. At this moment another insight crystalized for me. Some people just don’t respond to quantitative information..
Our understanding of the value of feedback loops is that they provide measurable, objective data (there is lots of good evidence that we are generally terrible at estimating quantitative information); they allow for goal setting and measurement of achievement; they generally increase awareness of the variable being followed (e.g., weight, steps, blood pressure, etc.) and they allow for some reality-check or accountability (it turns out self-deceit is quite popular when it comes to health)...
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rob halkes
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