Healthcare Business Today, US: Cognizant’s Vice President, Revenue Cycle Management, Discusses the Emergence of the Healthcare Prosumer

“Physician and futurist Dr. Rubin Pillay describes in his work a technology-fueled future-state that, in many ways, is already here,” writes Allen Latham. “For healthcare providers, this prediction could be catastrophic; for healthcare consumers, it could be enlightening. For both, it may forever change the way healthcare is accessed and delivered.”  Excerpts:

“Initially described in futurist Alvin Toffler’s 1980 book ‘The Third Wave,’ the prosumer has the ability to produce and consume, well, anything. That concept has never been truer than in 2018. We are, in effect, already in the midst of the prosumer era. There’s no turning back. Everything that makes a prosumer a prosumer is available at little or no cost and is extremely easy to use.

Healthcare prosumers, however, take Toffler’s model one large and significant step forward because—thanks to ubiquitous smartphones, cheap computing power, free or inexpensive apps and low-cost add-on sensors—they have the ability to produce, consume and diagnose. This prosumer not only knows their cholesterol numbers, but has the ability to generate those numbers and act on them.

And while the rise of the prosumer nation may be a concern to physicians for a number of reasons, they need not be left behind because patients want healthcare providers’ continuing involvement in their care.

A survey of more than 2,000 adults found among all age groups there is an appetite to improve the healthcare experience with more communication with physicians, especially using automation or AI.”

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