Creating Mindful Leaders

Chapter 12Turn Depressing Data Into Healthy Employees

We're entering this era where if you don't have an outcome, you're not gonna have an income.

—Sandra Nichols, AstraZeneca

One of the most exciting aspects of healthcare technology is the increasing opportunity to leverage real‐time data. The annual employee Health Risk Assessment (HRA) snooze fest can now be supplemented with connected devices including wearables, biometrics, and healthcare claims. We've entered into a new era in which an individual employee's needs can be evaluated and solutions (especially digital training programs) “prescribed” in the moment.

Way Beyond Wearables. Data sources go well beyond consumer wearables like Fitbit. Medical device wearables are being developed to target the four most prevalent chronic illnesses: congestive heart failure, diabetes, hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Roughly 72 million wearable devices were shipped in 2015. That's expected to grow to 156 million by 2019.¹

Data Rich But Insight Poor

Most large companies collect tremendous amounts of data on their employee populations. Until recently, it generally just sat on a shelf. With connected devices and the resulting data, we can now prescribe the right solutions for individual employees when they are needed.

Although the data‐enabled human race is just kicking off, I predict that digital training programs ...