I couldn’t help thinking of that phrase — it’s the economy, stupid — when I came across a recent study published in Academic Medicine that looked at the connection between physicians’ empathy and clinical outcomes for diabetic patients. Researchers at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia sought to test the hypothesis that physicians’ empathy could benefit their patients in real and meaningful ways.

Low and behold, empathy matters!  Among almost 900 diabetics, the study found that a physicians’ degree of empathy was a “unique and significant contributor” to the prediction of good control of hemoglobin A1c and LDL cholesterol.  Physicians with high empathy scores had patients with better health outcomes.

So what’s the connection? The authors suggest that empathy breeds trust between patients and their docs, which in turn encourages “sharing without concealment, leading to better alignment between patients’ needs and treatment plans and, therefore, more accurate diagnosis and greater adherence.”

At Alliance Health we’ve always believed a little empathy could go a long way. When we launched Diabetic Connect in 2008 we assumed people living with diabetes would find comfort in connecting with peers who could relate to what they were going through. We figured that people who genuinely “got it” would offer the kind of caring support and advice too-often missing in a clinical setting.

Not surprisingly, this “peer-to-peer” support is all the more critical for patients with chronic or rare diseases.  In a report released last month by Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, Susannah Fox found that one in four internet users living with diseases such as diabetes, heart conditions, cancer or other chronic ailments say they have gone online to find others with similar health conditions.

“The internet can enable connections across distances and among people who may never have met in person,” Susannah writes. “These encounters can have deep and lasting impact on people’s health and well‐being, particularly among those who thought they would never find someone who shared their particular situation.”

These connections happen literally every day on our health-focused social networks.  And as we now know, this isn’t just emotionally gratifying for patients, it is also medically significant.  This journey started for us three years ago, first in diabetes and now encompassing 35 chronic illnesses, from sleep apnea and chronic pain to rare disorders such as Cystic Fibrosis and Lupus.

As we continue to innovate and identify new ways to empower patients, we know one thing is clear: Our success will be measured in part by the degree to which our social networks foster true and lasting empathy.

The Wellness Pyramid

been slow to embrace social media, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  In the end I learned that insurers have no illusions about what is at stake as more of their subscribers turn to the Internet to navigate their health care decisions.

Health economist Jane Sarasohn-Kahn pointed out in a recent post that health insurers in particular should care deeply about how engaged consumers are in their health.  Engagement tends to foster smarter choices when it comes to managing our health, whether it’s choosing to exercise, eat more vegetables, take our medicine or see a doctor.

By contrast, lack of engagement typically leads to worse health outcomes.  That means more spending on medical care, a known cause of heartburn and sleeplessness among health plan executives.

It’s not just the insurers who win when consumers are engaged.  We all do.  Yet it’s remarkable how difficult it is to take even simple steps towards health and wellness.  Thomas Goetz brings the point home in The Decision Tree. Despite everything we know about the value of diet and exercise, research shows that only about 3 percent of us actually practice healthy behaviors.

This begs the question: How do we move people from thinking about health and wellness to doing something about it?  We wrestle with this question every day here at Alliance Health, since much of what we do is connect patients and caregivers to each other and to resources that can help improve their lives.

For most of us the path to wellness is a long and difficult slog.  The pyramid below shows at a glance that we can’t easily get there without first becoming empowered as health care  consumers.  This is why we start with consumer engagement first.  Our thinking is that simple steps – connecting with friends, joining online discussions, sending virtual gifts, earning badges – will empower us as consumers and propel us further along the path.

Likewise, our experience building social networks in health suggests that the steps we take as consumers of health care can prepare us to be empowered as patients.  In other words, if we can be successfully engaged to complete a profile and “friend” people who can empathize with our health issues, we are more likely to create a personal health record, post ratings of our providers, or use tools to track and manage our disease.

Those are big steps, and if we’re lucky, the start of something even more rewarding – the path to wellness.  That’s the top of the pyramid – the point at which we we’re motivated to track what we eat and how much we exercise.  It’s the point where we’ll work with virtual coaches and share our health data in ways that can advance research.

We know the path from consumer engagement to wellness won’t be easy, but we’ve got to start somewhere.  And there’s perhaps no better to place to begin the journey than on a social network with people who share not just our pain, but our aspirations.

Many of the biggest players in health fixate on the “strategic” value of new technologies for patient care and the latest approaches to wellness.  It’s comforting to think about the promise of these advancements, but the reality is most consumers are not crying out for a personal health record or a new widget to identify drug on drug interactions.

Important as these tools are, few are likely to take hold in a meaningful way until we successfully engage consumers in their health. That is why Alliance Health is dedicated to building a social networking platform of unrivaled quality and reach.  We believe social innovation is the key to cracking the code on consumer engagement.

For too long, the interests of the most powerful industry players have trumped the interests of health care consumers. There has been disproportionate focus on addressing the needs of health plans, pharmaceutical companies, employers and doctors. In this environment it’s little wonder that consumers are disillusioned.  A recent Deloitte survey found that three out of four consumers grade the U.S. health care system as “C” or worse.

Meanwhile the consumer has been crying out for help. Help that is caring and empathic. Help that provides not just hope, but guidance. At Alliance Health, we think this help should be independent of a consumer’s health plan or hospital system. Independent of their doctor or employer (if they are lucky enough to have one these days.)

In our view the consumer perspective needs to return to its rightful place – at the top of the list of industry priorities. We need to be empowered to confront the complexities of the current system that too often yield isolation, anxiety and confusion for so many of us.

As such, Alliance Health is laser focused on a consumer engagement model that starts with social networking and social innovation. Social because together we can help unlock information, services, connections, and synergies that otherwise would be impossible to unravel in a health care industry as complex as ours. And social because it is caring, hopeful, dynamic and directional.

Like the online landscape itself, discussions about consumer engagement are evolving.  We’ll continue to follow the work of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, California HealthCare Foundation and others seeking to better understand the link between engagement and outcomes, particularly for people with chronic disease.

This is an important journey — one we look forward to navigating with you as online health continues its rapid and exciting evolution.