NASHVILLE--How do you empower consumers in the health care industry?

Well, for one thing, you give them access to simple blood testing that can change their health and tell them exactly how much it costs.

That's the mission of — and the message from — Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos, who spoke Thursday during America's Health Insurance Plans Institute 2015 in Nashville.

"We need to engage and empower consumers," Holmes said. "We cannot deny the individual the basic role to know about their health."

Her biotech company's goal is to enable early detection by offering blood tests that are transparent in cost, easy to get and inexpensive.

Theranos, valued at about $9 billion, performs blood tests differently: Rather than taking vials of blood from a needle and syringe, it requires only a few drops of blood, drawn from the fingertips. And, perhaps most importantly, it costs significantly less, usually one-quarter to one-10th of the usual cost. And there is no confusion over cost; prices are listed on Theranos' website. Results are faster (often within hours) and more accurate, too.

The company has been growing rapidly and has partnered with Walgreens, which hosts wellness centers at more than 40 of its stores in Arizona and California.

READ: Where healthcare consumerism is headed

Labs, Holmes said, have been "tremendous impediments to critical life-saving data. Until recently, people couldn't get copies of their own lab results. I can go out and buy a weapon, a poisonous snake ... yet in too many states it's illegal for me to get an [over-the-counter] allergy test, a blood-based pregnancy test or a Vitamin D test."

"There's this massive barrier to our own health information. To engage an individual, we must put them in the driver's seat of their own car," Holmes said.

That begins with engaging with physicians, understanding--and having access to--health care costs, and of course, increasing access to simple blood tests that can save lives, she explained.

READ: Kids missing out on preventative care

Holmes cited diabetes as one example. The No. 7 killer in the United States, diabetes is very simply detected by a blood test. But, Holmes said, nearly 90 percent of people with diabetes are unaware of it. Adults with undiagnosed diabetes are 50 percent more likely to die than those who are diagnosed in time.

The bottom line? "Routine blood testing could save lives," she said. "If we want to build a health care system where early detection and prevention is the model, we must take down barriers." Access to blood testing for important health measures, including cholesterol, cancer and heart disease, she said, is a "basic human right."

It's a small part of Holmes' bigger mission, and vision, for health care: empowering consumers so that the health care system can change for the better.

"Health care is arguably the most important industry to everyone--yet there's a lack of transparency," Holmes said. "Our current system is based on a model to treat costly health disorders only after people are sick."

She argued that increasing transparency in the health market will engage consumers and thus, drive health prices down. It will drive market competition, which will result in "better products and better prices."

"The lack of engagement of the consumer has a profound effect on the market itself: There is no pressure for prices to drop," Holmes said. "Every person should know how much a test will cost them before that test is done."

When individuals are engaged and informed, she argued, they also will engage better with health care providers.

Holmes urged the thousands of attendees to join her to call for "change and disruption" within the industry.

"We're at a great time where great change is possible. It's time to achieve a new paradigm," Holmes said. "This is the moment, and I hope today you will join us."

Instant Insights /

Theranos CEO: Consumers deserve better access to blood testing

More From HR Executive

Related Stories

Recommended For You