Designing Healthcare for People... Dr. Daniel Kraft, Tech Nation Health Chief Correspondent
I'm Moira Gunn. You're listening to TechNation. Are we adapting to the technology of health care, or is the technology of health care supposed to adapt to us? TechNation Health chief correspondent doctor Daniel Kraft is clear about what's supposed to happen. Well, hey, Daniel.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Good to see you.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:Hi, Moira.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Now this just occurred to me because I actually had a change in an app on my computer, and, so we had to interact all differently. And sometimes I feel like things are designed for us to make our lives better and to do functions we wanna do. And other times, I feel like, well, I'm adjusting everything I need to do to get it to work the way I want. I don't feel like this app was designed for me. I was wondering, is there some, I don't know, application or or transfer over in the the health area?
Dr. Daniel Kraft:I think you're touching on the sort of meta element of sort of design thinking and empathy meets health care design. Right? So many of what we work with. If you're right handed or left handed, you might need a different setup on your laptop or in your kitchen. And that reminds me, a couple weeks ago, I was at a Design Meets Healthcare Conference in San Diego, and I met doctor Patricia Moore, who's often called the mother of empathy.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:She's a real, she's a legendary designer. And what one of the things she's best known for is when she was a young designer, she sort of, decided to see what it's like to be an older person. So she kinda became a gerontologist based designer and would put on clothes and outfits when she was in her thirties. It made it look like she was in her seventies that included the ability to make it harder for her to see and to move. And from that, she developed a lot of empathy for what it was like to be someone with mobility issues in their seventies or eighties or nineties and then helped design solutions for older folks.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:So this idea of being literally in someone else's shoes, I think, can help designers and innovators of all sorts not build the one size fit all solution, whether it's the user interface on your app or, you know, how you design a walking stick. Lots of potential now to have design meet health care in in much more, human centric ways. I think you might find if you're an older person and you've let and mobility issues, some of the clothes might have to go in differently. You might not be able to function with certain buttons or certain forms of zippers. Just like, you know, when my kids were before they could tie their shoes, have shoes that have Velcro in them.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:You design for the age and the capability of the individual. I think we're starting to see this new kind of interesting age of what's often called a human centered approach, to solving for problems as well as to bring that design thinking aesthetic to our entire healthcare ecosystem. Because, you know, a lot of what we use, everything from the operating room to the clinic can be re redesigned to really meet the person using it. Or now in this sort of digital AI enabled age, provide an interface that really matches the age, the culture, the language, the personality type, the incentives of someone who might be using that product, that app, that device, or that medical intervention.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Now do you have any examples of how design is this human centered design is hitting health care?
Dr. Daniel Kraft:Sure. I mean, if any of you have been unfortunate to be a a patient in a hospital, a lot of traditional hospital rooms are sort of jumbled pieces of of, medical equipment and furniture. And, I think the next generation of hospitals, like Stanford is a brand new one, when my father had a total knee replacement a year ago, you could tell that there's some thought into how they designed that room for the experience of not just the patient, but their family members. Maybe it's a a pullout couch or a better easier to access, remote control that doesn't get lost. So things like flexible lighting and, nature views out the window to make that sort of often sterile clinical space feel a bit more private and a good place for for healing, including managing interruptions and noise and lighting.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:So that's an idea of a patient centered room design. Back to before you even get to the, hospital bed, you know, many of us have been stuck waiting for hours in an emergency department or at the DMV, right, waiting to get your license renewed.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Oh, torture.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:So how do you how do you design, that experience in the emergency room for better triage and better workflow, not just for the patient and their families, but for the emergency room staff and help, the flow from getting into the OR to out of the OR. And now that's being redesigned with new workflows using, you know, smart tablets, giving someone the equivalent of a a wristband that buzzes when it's their turn so they don't need to sit in the waiting room and get sick from everybody coughing around them. Those are other kind of examples of of smart design elements. I'm trained as an oncologist. We know that many oncology patients get stuck sitting in a sterile, scary place getting their infusions.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:Well, some folks, even some Disney Imagineers, have worked with Disney and and Children's Hospital of of California, and they've made these sort of infusion centers with beautiful walls that have movies played on them or now being able to put on their virtual reality headset. So you can make these sort of clinical experiences more, empathetic and less stressful for for everybody involved. And then, you know, no one likes to have a disease, particularly chronic diseases like diabetes. You don't get to take a break. So how do you design kind of sometimes, engagement tools for, let's say, a type one diabetic who has to check their blood sugar and manage their insulin so that the design really matches the age of that individual?
Dr. Daniel Kraft:If they're a teenager, they're gonna want a different kind of interface than someone in their forties or fifties. How do you learn and crowdsource data and encourage people to contribute so that the next levels of design interfaces and data and and utility are better? Those are a few kind of design thinking elements. And then what's interesting now in the era of design thinking, I, you know, I went to medical school at Stanford. There's a famous d school, design school now.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:Now you're finding, for example, physicians working with undergraduates, meeting communities that have, you know, low resource capabilities or have rare diseases and learning from the need knowers or maybe the the need knowers, the patient or their family member, and doing hackathons and designing solutions that can be built or three d printed. So I think we're starting to see this democratization of design thinking. You don't have to have a design degree. You don't need to be a a a clinician, but you can be the need knower yourself and inspire others or yourself to design solutions that can be a better pillbox to take your meds or a better, handle for the walker for grandma to to not have a fall or a tumble. So I would encourage everyone to start having a design thinking aesthetic, to be a little bit empathetic and to start to integrate new ways of not just solutions, but the ways that you interact with those solutions to build a better health care world for all of us.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Well, that's just terrific. It makes me feel so much better. Yeah. And I look forward to you coming back. Thanks for coming in, Daniel.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Alright.
Dr. Daniel Kraft:See you next time.
Dr. Moira Gunn:Technation Health chief correspondent, doctor Daniel Craft, is the founder and chair of NextMed Health on the web at nextmed.health and digital.health. More information about Daniel at daniel craft m d dot net.
