An Apple a Day: What the iPhone Can Teach Us About Health Care

What took Apple so long to get in to health care? Here’s my suggestion from 5 years ago: The day before my daughter Elise’s 15th birthday, the new iPhone went on sale.  My birthday was 4 days later.  So Elise figured out we should buy each other an iPhone to mark our big days.  She planned (and saved) for months.  She spent weeks talking to friends, researching apps on line, planning for such accessories as protective covers, and educating herself on how to maximize her minutes. When the big day came, we made our way to the Apple store and stood shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others waiting on a very long line.  Two and a half hours later we were invited, actually escorted, in to the store by an extremely friendly, knowledgeable young man who stayed with us during the entire purchase transaction. He answered tons of questions (mine, not Elise’s…she already knew everything), politely reviewed various functions with me (Elise was extremely patient during this process), and made great suggestions about which plan was best for us. While we were waiting on line, I looked around at the people waiting with us–we were an extremely diverse group–and wondered (a) Why in the world were we all willing to wait hours to buy a telephone, a very expensive telephone?  (b) How did the folks at Apple get us to this point? and (c) What lessons could we take away and apply to health care? Here’s what I came up with: Cool. The iPhone is not your mother’sÂ...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs