Patient Activation Part 1

I have thought a lot about how you could help engage patients to participate in their healthcare decisions.  The problem is that it is really behavior that needs to change and that is such a personal choice that no one but that person can choose to make.  So the question is how do we do that?

There are a lot of different methods out there that may work for some and not for others.    One that seems to work well is holding people accountable for behavior changes through their social network.  One such site is a game on Facebook called Health Seeker.  They also have a mobile app so people can play it on their phones as well. This uses your social network and challenges to help you stay accountable.  It makes people more engaging by feeling the value of progressing through the individual and actions. As they complete their missions, they work on completing lifestyle goals.

 

Social features: If the player sees that their friend is playing the game, that means that they will take on more missions. If they rec a notification that another player on something that they have done, they are twice as likely have twice as many actions.  Knowing that people are with you becomes a key motivator to changing behavior.  They provide badges and the badges acknowledge that you did something healthy.  

You can challenge your friends and it is that challenge mechanism that turns out to be the most powerful motivator for changing behavior someone who sends a challenge regardless if it is ever acted on by someone, the sender has on average has twice as many actions completed and twice as many completed missions. Someone who receives a challenge even if they don't accept the challenge, they are slightly less active on missions.

So what do you think does this really work?  So far it seems like it works by allowing people to take baby steps instead of making big lifestyle changes all at once.  
--The Catalyst