Forrester Research: Forrester Retail Insights Healthcare First Look: Research & Event Highlights From Forrester

 20 Sep. 2005
Where You Can Find Us
Forrester is excited to kick off this year's Consumer Forum 2005 with an exciting list of speakers who will reveal insights into innovating in a consumer-driven world, including the commissioner of the National Football League and the man behind the marketing of the iPod. Katy Henrickson will lead a discussion on the implications of the consumer healthcare market. She will expose insights from Forrester's consumer surveys and present examples from healthcare and other consumer-focused industries that highlight how companies will adapt to changes in aging, consumerism, and retailization in healthcare.

Katy Henrickson will be featured on a panel of HSA experts to discuss key issues in marketing and implementing HSAs in AHIP's audio conference Health Savings Accounts: ABC's of Administrative and Operational Systems on Thursday, September 29, 2005, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. Eastern time. The panel will also delve into strategies for effective consumer education and review "lessons learned" from employers and health plan members.

Liz Boehm will be speaking at CBI's 4th Annual Technology Supported Physician Detailing conference on September 30 in Philadelphia. As a conference co-chair, Liz will provide a review of the topics presented on the first day of the conference, which include developing business models for integrating detailing, as well as using online detailing.

Brad Holmes will deliver the keynote address on October 25 at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's 2005 Inter-Plans Programs Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. Brad will identify how products and networks will need to evolve to remain competitive, offer recommendations for successful care management solutions for enrollees in CDHPs, and provide a profile of consumer readiness to adopt CDHP products.

Mark your calendars now for Forrester's Executive Strategy Forum, November 15-16, 2005, in Boston. This Event is designed to provide the tools, knowledge, and best practices necessary to use technology to transform business models -- through innovation, new customer loyalty programs, and creative alliance strategies -- to tap into global market opportunities.


Forrester's Health Plan Web Site Review Program
Forrester is continuing the Web Site Usability Benchmark program for health plans that we launched in Q3. The program combines private usability feedback and improvement recommendations with the competitive benchmarks that plans need to increase self-service, decrease costs, and differentiate from competitors.

Participating plans will learn how their constituent-facing sites perform against cross-industry usability best practices, as well as how site features and functions compare with competitive offerings. In Q4, we are focusing on provider-facing sites.

Please contact Carrie Hogan at chogan@forrester.com for more information.


Numbers You Should Know
54. Percent of the eDetailed medical professionals surveyed who say they want to remain anonymous during an eDetail.

5. Estimated percent of HealthEquity's members who take advantage of the firm's health-related credit feature. HealthEquity is an HSA administrator.

85. Percent of online consumers who turn to the Net for health-related questions.

41. Number of days remaining until new FDA rules on the implementation of SPL go into effect for pharma firms.


Healthcare Forrester Teleconference
Sam Bishop discussed the relationships of age and healthcare use, attitudes, and preferences in her teleconference Age And The Healthcare Consumer today. She synthesized data from multiple Consumer Technographics® surveys and highlighted key differences among Gen X, boomers, and seniors -- and what that means for plan and drug marketers. A recording of this teleconference will be available next week. You can access it and other past Forrester Teleconferences at our archive.


Consumers In Their 30s Are Most Likely To Vist Health Plan Web Sites
Consumers In Their 30s Are Most Likely To Vist Health Plan Web Sites

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The Race For Personal Healthcare Finance

The growing market for CDHPs and HSAs has brought about a collision of two worlds: financial services and healthcare, with consumer loyalty hanging in the balance. Plans must support personal healthcare finance or risk losing members' affection and funds to HSA custodians, administrators, and other vendors that are starting to deliver the services and advice consumers need. In this piece, we discuss the moves HSA vendors are taking and how financial services firms are well-positioned to set up one of the greatest heists of our time -- stealing health plan member relationships right before plans' eyes.

But don't expect plans to stand idly by. CIGNA has shown its commitment to CDHPs by acquiring benefits configurator Choicelinx. What does CIGNA gain from this deal? Choicelinx's Benefits Configurator arms CIGNA with front-end capabilities -- enabling members to customize and configure member-level benefits online -- to complement its back-end use of CareGain's Defined-Care platform. And don't expect Choicelinx to respond to any RFPs from Aetna or United anytime soon, either. To respond to the shrinking market, Forrester offers plans advice on vendors beyond the healthcare industry.

Docs Like eDetailing's 24x7 Access And Rewards Next-Generation eDetailing

In the second document of the "2005 eDetailing Insights" series, Forrester answers the question: Does eDetailing work? We recently conducted an online survey of 6,906 physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants, two-thirds of whom participate in eDetailing, and compared the results with non-eDetailed docs from our mail-based American Medical Association/Forrester Research 2005 Physicians And Technology Study. The data provides a wealth of information about what docs want and expect in an eDetail. We reveal what works (text outlining product descriptions) and what doesn't (patient testimonials) and share how marketers can address physicians' concerns.

Also, watch for the publication of the "The Forrester Wave™: eDetailing, Q3 2005" and a flurry of other planned research in the coming weeks.

SPL Will Propel Pharma Into XML Adoption

The FDA mandate that pharma firms exclusively use Structured Product Labeling (SPL) for electronic labeling is now just around the corner. While SPL promises to make content consistent and easier to manage by improving content reuse, speeding up submissions paper work, and permitting more collaborative and secure authoring, the skies aren't clear yet. Pharma firms still struggle to understand the implementation guidelines and how the FDA's automated system will work. To gain the benefits of SPL, pharma should take a number of steps now, such as paying a vendor like Data Conversion Laboratory or Innodata to help with the initial process learning curve.

Who Cares About Online Health Content?

Some 85% of online consumers turn to the Net for health-related questions, but how they use this information differs substantially among different cohorts. We created four different user segments to illustrate who is influenced by online health content and who isn't. Enthusiasts, those who agree that online health information has aided in health decisions and share the info they find online with their doctor, tend to be tech-happy females who have been diagnosed with health problems. We look at the demographic breakdowns of all four cohorts and answer the questions: What keeps consumers from being health content enthusiasts and how can content providers better engage readers?

We are very interested in your feedback on our research. Do you have topics to recommend, data you would like to have, or technologies you want assessed? Drop me a line at bradholmes@forrester.com so we can connect.


Brad Holmes
VP and Practice Leader,
Healthcare and Life Sciences


Research Referenced In This Issue

CIGNA HealthCare Buys CDHP Pioneer Choicelinx (37591)
Next-Generation eDetailing (37602)
SPL Will Propel Pharma Into XML Adoption (37647)
The Race For Personal Healthcare Finance (37412)
Who Cares About Online Health Content? (37405)


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