Designing the Healthcare Experience

I was recently asked to give examples of successful products resulting from unmet/underserved needs identified through customer insight research. A flippant answer would be, "just about anything not in the SkyMall catalog", but a more sensible answer was warranted! I pointed toward just about every car of recent years, Volvo being worthy of note for addressing female drivers (XC90); some of my own work with St Jude Medical, an Ethicon-Endo Surgery case study, and finally rounding out with examples by Intel, Marriott, and others.

Tangentially, I have spent many years citing the healthcare environment (particularly delivery rooms and equipment) as totally missing the mark around human emotional needs. In fact, I famously once gave a musical presentation (music elicits emotion) to a senior group at a leading device company on exactly this subject; leaving them staring at me in disturbing silence and disbelief. My point being, "You're missing one of the biggest unmet needs out there: peoples' feelings and fears". My senior colleague nearly fainted...

There have been some valiant attempts to address this by a few brand new hospitals and companies such as Philips, but the status quo is hard to change.

Until now it seems.

The Herman & Walter Samuelson Breast Care Center at Northwest Hospital is now running TV ads in the Baltimore region which beautifully capture the point and act upon unmet emotional/practical needs around breast care. In this simple example, a patient, sitting in a typical drab white-grey consulting room is clearly uncomfortable. She walks to a control on the wall and turns the ‘comfort dial’, transforming the room into something much more akin to her living room. Immediately we all find ourselves relaxing. Dawn Leonard, MD, FACS goes on to explain evening and weekend hours, tailored to suit patients who annoyingly still have to work for a living.

It's 2011 and this is just now going mainstream? Congratulations to Dawn and LifeBridge Health for listening to your patients and for giving me another example.

You can watch their ad here.

Clinvue Donates to Starlight Children's Foundation

The medical device innovation company, Clinvue, recently donated a percentage of it’s 2010 revenue to Starlight Children’s Foundation as part of an annual commitment to support the non-profit organization.

“I was delighted to write a check to Starlight, knowing that as a result of our efforts and the time and engagement given by our teams and partners, we will have helped children and their families as they battle with the pain, fear, and isolation of illness”, says Paul Fearis, CEO of Clinvue.

From it’s inception, one of Clinvue’s guiding tenets has been to give back to the community from which it draws its inspiration. It does so in two ways: by providing new, improved, and more accessible medical technology; and by supporting patients and clinicians in their fight to overcome serious illness.

Starlight is a non-profit organization that helps seriously ill children and their families cope with their pain, fear and isolation through entertainment, education and family activities. Visit them at www.starlight.org

Clinvue is a full service front-end of innovation partner for medical device manufacturers and consultancies, comprised of a unique partnership of physicians, innovators, researchers, and designers. Visit them at www.clinvue.com

Sex, Lies, and Vaccinations

Clinvue Director, Dr. Jonathan Sackier discusses medical research accountability in his latest GPP article: Sex, Lies, and Vaccinations

Happy New Year from all of us at Clinvue

Legislating Against Innovation

A new study recently published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, draws attention to the fact that many medical device manufacturers are paying large sums of money to surgeons in return for insight, assistance and research, and that a worrying proportion are not declaring their interest or earnings. Beyond the obvious concern over tax evasion (not the subject I tackle here), the study actually raises the fundamental question "can a surgeon who is being paid by a device manufacturer be considered impartial (by the patient)"?

"When you take money from the company that makes the product, you clearly undermine the ethical relationship between doctor and patient," said Andy Relman, former editor New England Journal of Medicine, commenting upon the study.

The study concentrates upon orthopedic surgeons, but the practice is certainly more widespread; it is interesting to note however that while this 'issue' has long been recognized in the pharmaceutical world (and subject to growing Sunshine Act legislation); here is a direct example in the previously less 'visible' device world.

We recognized this problem and founded Clinvue to help address it, clearly a timely decision. Our premise being:

Clinicians and hospitals desire to innovate new devices/procedures/practices (primarily to improve patient care). Product Manufacturers want to do the same (to make money and improve patient care). However, these complimentary and laudable desires butt heads when considered in an ethical context and therefore they must be 'firewalled' in some way which allows the useful (and bi-directional) transmission of knowledge and ideas, while divorcing this from payment and the resulting conflict of interest.

Why bother to create such a conduit, why not just shut these relationships down?

The answer is easy; because the best innovation occurs when clinicians (from Surgeons, to nurses and beyond) share their experience and expertise with engineers and designers for a common good (the patient). To break this collaboration would slow down the pace of innovation and lives would be affected, or worse, lost unnecessarily.

Clearly this is a difficult problem to solve, Clinvue is tackling it head on under the guidance of leading physicians and institutions, who are increasingly more inclined to back away from manufacturers than risk investigation unless offered a viable alternative. We are innovators at heart, with a strong track record in translating clinician insight into ground-breaking devices; and that is the key, to have the correct 'receptors' to plug into both clinicians and manufacturers - but with no product to sell (or buy).

To find out more about the study, visit the excellent Qmed feed at: http://bit.ly/abBEnn and/or follow Clinvue on Twitter!

Study Shows Medical Device Problems Hurt More Than 70k U.S. Kids Each Year

In the following, quite disturbing, article by Lindsey Tanner I was struck by the subliminal message Dr. Steven Krug, head of emergency medical at Chicago Children's Memorial Hospital sends to the medical device industry:

Care settings are changing (expanding); care previously provided by acute care facilities is finding its way into the home. In many cases, the products that deliver this care are not evolving to address the unique needs of the home care setting, resulting in an increase in device-related injuries.

There are several factors here: poor design of devices for inexperienced users, lack of user training, and the absence of qualified medical professionals to make responsive changes in diagnosis and intervention. As the study demonstrates, it is naive to assume that a product designed for a particular setting and care giver (e.g. nurse) will perform correctly in an alternate care setting such as the home. Unfortunately this issue has resulted in a significant number of patient injuries each year, presenting a clear and challenging opportunity for companies to improve usability, increase compliance, and reduce both patient and business risks

Our experience has been that this 'consumerization' of healthcare, while fundamentally good for patients, is poorly understood by many healthcare companies; not because their products or intentions are bad but because the (new) home healthcare setting is somewhat alien to them and the vagaries of 'consumer' stakeholder behavior are poorly understood as drivers of design and experience.

Not all of the 70,000 children cited in the article were harmed by devices or device/use precipitated complications, but a significant proportion were. Clinvue exists to make healthcare better by helping manufacturers better understand stakeholders and varying care settings; our close relationship with Starlight really made this article resonate with me.

Article: Medical device problems hurt more than 70,000 U.S. kids annually

Giving Back

From its inception, one of the guiding tenets of Clinvue was that it should give back to the community from which it draws its inspiration. For us 'giving back' takes two forms: firstly, the fruit of our labors: new, improved and more accessible medical technology; and secondly, supporting patients and clinicians in their fight to overcome serious illness.

With this latter point in mind I am pleased to announce that Clinvue has partnered to support Starlight Children's Foundation, an organization dear to our hearts as it identifies and solves the unmet needs of children with chronic and life-threatening illnesses. Unlike any other charity, Starlight offers a comprehensive menu of outpatient, hospital-based and Web offerings that enable them to provide ongoing support for children and families — from diagnosis through the entire course of medical treatment.

Click here for more information about Starlight and their work

Brandon Craft appointed to Board of Directors @ Virginia Tech

Clinvue's Head of Research & Design has accepted a board position within the School of Architecture + Design at Virginia Tech. In this position, Brandon hopes to improve communication between industry and industrial design education. Please contact him if you would like to become involved.

The mission of the School of Architecture + Design is to create a setting for the pursuit of theoretical, practical, and productive knowledge, embracing the duality of the education of an individual and the practice of a profession. The School takes a decidedly Modern position towards design and simultaneously seeks to understand the structure of historical development and culture. The School has a long-standing commitment to international and urban studies through the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center, the Study Abroad Program, and the University’s Center for European Studies and Architecture.

The objective of the School of Architecture + Design is to produce graduates who will be leaders in their chosen professions and in the communities in which they live. The School seeks to provide a forum that cultivates vigorous dialogue and debate, enriching the interrelations between education and practice.

Virginia Tech's School of Architecture + Design is ranked among the top in the nation. Click here to learn more.