|
| | home | mature market news | contact us | community links | |
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
|
|
|
 Marketing Effectiveness |
Impact Presenters Change Your Thinking Change Your Results Or be left behind. . . |
|
|
||||
| Mature Market News - Thought Leaders and Noteworthy Events |
|
Age of the Querulous: Meeting the Healthcare Demands of the Demanding Boomers Ready or not, here they come. In less than two years, the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation will turn 60. It has been widely anticipated that with this magic number will come an onslaught of healthcare demands like none seen before. While the sheer volume of aging Baby Boomers is more than enough to strain the system, the actual snapping point may very well come from an increasingly uneasy relationship between providers and patients. Last month the Young Health Care Leaders invited Dr. Bruce Clark, DPH, co-founder of Impact Presentations Group and Age Wave LLC, to speak on the implications of caring for ... and preparing for ... a new generation of "mature" healthcare consumers. Clark is widely recognized as an authority on the business and marketing implications of a multigenerational society. In addition to a body of published works and age-based research, Dr. Clark produced the 20-part PBS series, Caring for an Aging Society. In his presentation, Clark walked the audience through a quick look at the demographic realities of today's society, a snapshot of the living six generations and their characteristics (see box on page 20) and some ideas on how to deal with demographic differences in the healthcare setting. He began by saying the Sigmoid Curve is a simple model that describes how businesses form, rise to the top and either reinvent themselves or rapidly decline. "Most reinventions start too late, that is my concern in healthcare," he said. "My encouragement today," he continued, "is that we not wait too long and not start too late." Clark noted the "halo" has been knocked off the healthcare industry. Consumers have a new, decidedly less reverential, attitude about the system as a whole and even about their personal providers. "We've had a very reverential relationship where patients don't want to take up their doctor's time and think their concerns aren't that important," Clark said of the traditional patient/provider relationship. "Get ready," he continued, "a very cranky, cantankerous, obnoxious client is making his way into your waiting room." This patient, the Baby Boomer, has rising concerns and discontent over cost, quality and access to service. The low morale, Clark added, is a two-way street with the provider community feeling frustrated and tired with the structure of today's healthcare system. "The bottom line is that innovation is in short supply in most industries today," he said. "We need to think very boldly about how we're going to reinvent healthcare, and we really need to think about the customer." He added, "At some point rationality is going to slowly creep back into the system ... it's very important to win the loyalty of our patients and we're going to be in competition for healthcare dollars." A driving force behind the need to rethink healthcare is the industrialized world's longevity revolution. Clark said that while space exploration is exciting and the advances in communications technology amazing, he can make a case that the single most important thing that happened in the 20th century was the activity of adding 30 years to human life expectancy. The results are a tremendous growth in the number of people over the age of 65, a "birth dearth" on the other end with very low birth rates in many industrialized nations and the aging Baby Boomers. "These three things will clearly dominate for the rest of your career if you remain in healthcare," he said. The life expectancy rate for the United States just recently increased to 77. Clark pointed out most everyone is happy about this except for maybe the U.S. government, which was really counting on folks not being around quite so long and not using up so many financial resources. Today, there are 35 million Americans in the 65-plus age group. In 1920, there were less than 10 million. By 2030, the expectation is that there will be more than 75 million in this age demographic. The fastest growing subset of the U.S. population is the 85-plus age group. Today, there are 70,000 Americans who have experienced their 100th birthday. Most people, Clark asserted, have generational myopia ... they see other age groups through the filter of their own generation. To effectively work with patients, Clark said it was important to be able to recognize and empathize with each generation's life experiences and core values. Furthermore, despite all the emphasis on demographic numbers, he said healthcare providers need to focus on a patient's lifestage perhaps more than their actual age, as patients tend to identify themselves that way. After all in today's society you may have a 42-year-old with a child in college or one in diapers. Perhaps the most overwhelming lifestage that has come about as a direct result of the longevity revolution is that of caretaker for elderly relatives. Rapidly entering the arena of the "mature" lifestage is the Baby Boomer. "Every seven seconds another very surprised Baby Boomer is getting a letter from AARP," Clark joked. "The Boomers transform every lifestage they inhabit," he continued in a more serious vein. "They are about to have another major impact because the Baby Boomer is about to get sick." This "new" mature demographic is very different from the ones that have gone before. They are going to be much more demanding of the healthcare system on a variety of levels. "Number one, this consumer - and get ready for this one - they are absolutely going to demand convenience and quality of service," Clark said. "Healthcare is the only major American industry that continues to resist the customer service movement," he added. "Intensive customer listening ... that is where we are falling short in healthcare." While the industry was able to get away with a lack of customer service in dealing with past generations, that comes to a screeching halt with the Boomers. The second characteristic Clark and his colleagues found in conducting research on this new mature audience is that they demand evidence of quality and expertise. However, while they place value on providers hitting benchmarks and receiving awards, the real definition of quality was in relational terms. Did my doctor hear me? Was my call returned? "We've become such a fast-paced business that the relationship is deteriorating," he said of the current healthcare environment. Another intriguing attribute of this generation is the willingness to embrace complementary and alternative medicines. From herbal medicine and massage therapy to chiropractic care and acupuncture, the Boomers have helped turn alternative medicine into a $50 billion industry. "This is interesting, especially if you're in an entrepreneurial mode," Clark pointed out. "In the world of 'serious' healthcare when we're looking for new profit centers, we could look here," he added. Bringing their life experiences to the table, this new mature consumer expects a combination of healthcare and retail. Convenience is a key factor for them. Tying into this, they also expect healthcare to be online and interactive. Statistically, Clark said seven million people a day now look to the Web for healthcare information. In addition to general health information or disease-specific information, consumers are turning to the Internet for online support groups, provider information and as a communication tool with providers. In summary, Clark said the healthcare industry must take "healthy aging" on as a system-wide priority. "Whether you are a doctor's office or an HCA, I think you've got to take on this issue of healthy aging," he said. Clark urged providers to create an organized community network that incorporates services and resources that are outside of the typical acute care setting. He believes that successful healthcare includes life planning. Clark pointed to the financial industry as an example of one that has looked outside its narrow focus area to assist clients with big picture planning. "On the other hand," he said, "healthcare does an incredibly poor job of incorporating other industries into the healthcare domain." Today, a disjointed system of assisted living facilities, senior centers, Meals on Wheels, transportation, adult daycare and many other service providers exist but without any type of cohesion. Clark suggests that healthcare providers need to think about where they fit into that overall care system and how they can work with these other providers to improve the health of their patients. "The fatal flaw in healthcare right now is that everyone is so distracted by our torturous payment system and our crumbling insurance system that no one is paying attention to how to reinvent the delivery system and reinvent it with this chronic care and mature consumer in mind," he said. He also believes that teaching employees of all levels to understand the generational and lifestage markers that define patients will be key in creating a good relationship with this new consumer and within the office environment. "It is critically important that healthcare workers at all levels - receptionists to surgeons - understand the lifestage events and generational drivers that define patients and coworkers," Clark said. He also suggested that providers build a useful Web presence, work on service and retention pertaining to both employees and patients, teach patients how to talk to their doctors to make the best of shorter and shorter office visits and help them navigate caregiving options. Perhaps most importantly, he urged providers to learn to listen.This article is from the Nashville Medical News and first appeared on October 19, 2004. Back To Mature Market News → Go To The GenerationTarget.com Mature Market Bookstore → |
| COMPANY INFORMATION | MARKETING BOOKSTORE | TRAINING AND EDUCATION | PRESENTERS AND SPEAKERS | |
|
|
©2005 . All Rights Reserved. home | essential books and reports | mature market news | generation x market news | contact us | community links |
