Whole Foods + Twitter = Sick Care Digital Health

There is a big Whole Foods store in my neighborhood. It is hard to find a space to park. As you would expect, the prices are high. And when I go there, I just see a bunch of products that are commodities. Most of the time I go there to buy the bread that my wife seems to like. Now, it seems, Whole Foods in worried about its Whole Paycheck image since sales are dropping.

The other day I participated in a Twitter Chat to see what these “chats” were like. I found it confusing to navigate and, while the comments and views were interesting, it felt more like speed dating than a real conversation. Twitter growth has stalled and investors are getting nervous and demanding solutions.

Perhaps there are some lessons here for SickCare, USA, since offering high-priced products and services that customers find hard to use and offer dwindling perceived value has been the sick care business model for many, many years. Digital health seems to be following Twitter when even the Brahmans of Silicon Valley start complaining about why non-sick care entrepreneurs don't understand sick care customers and can't seem to build products they are willing to use, let alone pay for.

Creating high-priced digital health solutions that are hard to use and don't address user pain seems to be the latest digital health MO. Perhaps they can learn something by having coffee with their colleagues at Whole Foods and Twitter. That is, if they can find a place to park.