In the past month, I have had the privilege of immersing myself in a number of health-based dialogues. As we think about how to get people to engage in healthy behaviors, we must understand the importance of the social networks of which people are a part in driving behavior change.

At Pitney Bowes, we start with the realization that the most important social network is the family unit. If we can reach the individual who makes health-related decisions for the family and persuade that individual to drive healthy behaviors in the family, we have gained a great deal. That’s why we did a home mailing in October to urge our employees and their families to get flu shots.

The workplace peer group is the second most important influence because individuals typically spend more waking hours at work than anywhere else. That’s why we have emphasized creating a culture of health in the workplaces we control. (more…)

Not surprisingly, I get asked about the future of mail. People point to the decline in personal correspondence, the tendency of large transaction statement providers like banks and insurance companies to encourage customers to receive bills and statements on the
Internet, the decline in magazines and newspapers on newsstands and through the mail, and the likelihood that catalog and direct mail recipients will find ways to stop getting mail they do not want to receive.

Every one of these parts of the mailstream has different future prospects. Paper-based consumer-originated personal correspondence has been declining for a long time. Transaction statements are a mixed bag. Some bills and statements are going electronic, such as bank and insurance statements. Others, like health care statements, are growing as we all spend more on health care. Mass circulation magazines and newspapers are declining, but a high-end publication like The Economist is growing nicely.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has just launched a new mail preference service that will allow mail recipients to register to receive more of what they want and to eliminate or reduce what they do not want. The DMA has delivered a significantly enhanced service for mail recipients who want to have more control over what they receive. (more…)

Having just recently attended a meeting at the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Center, which I find to be exceptionally entrepreneurial, collaborative across many disciplines, departments, and even schools, and innovative, I am struck by the huge opportunity our health care system has available by focusing on good genetic risk assessment, prevention screenings, and early diagnosis and treatment for medical conditions.

We have made considerable progress over the last 20 years in covering preventive screenings in health plans, and in publicizing the importance of screenings such as mammograms for breast cancer, colonoscopies for colon cancer, and Pap smears for cervical cancer. We also are getting more people than ever to test for blood sugar to test for diabetes.

However, we still have too many medical conditions that go undiagnosed until it is either too late to treat them, or prohibitively expensive to do so. The investment in early diagnosis for many treatments is hugely positive for a health plan. For example, I learned that a diagnosis of breast cancer at Stage 1 results in a $1,500 per month treatment cost. A later-stage diagnosis results in a $9,500 per month treatment cost. The HealthCheckUSA blog provides more details about the specific benefits linked to health screenings of all kinds. (more…)