Thank you for your interest in our research report!
Consumers, when properly empowered, can take greater responsibility for preventative care. Consumers, when properly empowered, can make smarter economic decisions treatment options. Consumers can be better consumers if properly empowered. So goes the argument. Yet, for all the hype about consumer directed healthcare (CDHC), addressing and assessing precisely what "properly empowered" means poses a challenge.
Consumers can now freely research condition cause and treatment information online through free web sites like WebMD. Consumers can research hospital quality information online through public information made available through firms like the Leapfrog Group or the California Health Care Foundation. Increasingly, health insurers provide hospital and physician cost and quality information on their member web sites. Increasingly, a wide range of new products such as Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) offer consumers new options to take control of their health care decisions and spending.
Yet, for all the innovation, critical questions have remained unanswered:
- Precisely what effect does the availability of cause and treatment information have on desired behaviors?
- Do consumers trust healthcare information more when it is provided by their health insurer or a third party?
- How effective do consumers feel they are at finding cause and treatment information?
- How effective in truth are consumers at finding cause and treatment information?
- How effective do consumers feel they are at finding hospital quality information?
- What effect does searching for care quality information have on desired behaviors?
- What effect does the availability of cost information have on desired outcomes?
Metavante commissioned research (performed by Change Sciences Group, Inc.) to address each of these questions, and more. Most importantly for the long term, this research provides a rigorous framework for assessing the effectiveness of online healthcare services going forward. The framework can be used by any organization providing health services online to assess its progress.
Please fill in the fields below to download the complete results of this ground-breaking research.