Blog DesignWell
By Emma Zhu - March 11, 2010
From last October, all the tier-3 hospitals in China, the highest ranked and best equipped public hospitals, were required by the Ministry of Health to provide clinic appointment services. The national initiative of building the clinic appointment system aims to reach these objectives: 1) arrange doctors' agenda better, 2) reduce patients' wait time, and 3) provide better medical consultation. In shorter words, in face of pressing healthcare issues, the government kicks off a service initiative to improve the healthcare efficiency as well as work quality.
Making doctor appointments is common in most developed countries, but it hasn't been put into public use in China before. You can go to the hospital anytime and get a queue number at the outpatient counter. The counter staff then dispatches you to a medical division and you wait outside the diagnosis room till your number is called. Waiting is not a nice thing in any scenario, not to mention when you are feeling sick. Seeing a doctor is like going on a blind date. You don't know who you'll meet and what you would expect in the hospital. All you know is that you feel not well and probably nervous in the medical environment.
Blog DesignWell
By Vincent Salvo - March 2, 2010
In the healthcare device and software industry, the mantra: build it and they will come doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked since Noah built an ark or the movie Field of Dreams was made. Ignoring the user experience is what’s wrong with the healthcare experience and begs for innovation.
Blog DesignWell
By Barbara Pantuso - February 19, 2010
How Evidence-Based Design Leads to Better Patient Outcomes.
“It is a curious thing to observe how almost all patients lie with their faces turned to the light, exactly as plants always make their way towards the light; a patient will even complain that it gives him pain ‘lying on that side.’ ‘Then why do you lie on that side?’ He does not know — but we do. It is because it is the side towards the window.”
-Florence Nightingale from Notes on Nursing
Blog DesignWell
By frog healthcare group - July 27, 2009
Last month I attended the Pacific Health Summit in Seattle. It is a pretty exclusive venue (aspiring to be the "Davos of Health Care") attended by senior representatives from the world of health care and public policy (such as Dr. Anthony Fauci from the NIH, Dr. Margaret Chan from WHO, Chris Viehbacher CEO of sanofi-aventis and Tadataka Yamada who heads the Global Health program for the Gates Foundation). The conference chooses a specific challenge to focus on each year. This year's topic was Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB)--more about that in a minute.
The venue provided a remarkable opportunity to reflect on the gaps between the promise and "delivery" of innovation. The design and business community have conspired over the last few years to polish up the term "innovation" to a high gloss. It is like Apple chrome now, this shiny gleaming element that can be applied to any surface. But what happens when innovation meets with the messy reality of domains like public health?
Blog DesignWell
By frog healthcare group - June 8, 2009
On Thursday (6/4/09), frog design hosted its second live one-hour conversation on Twitter about Connected Home Health (CHH). Initially, we defined CHH as connected "ecosystems of people, devices, and services to better manage health & wellness at home" but the conversation extended far beyond a definition and generated some innovative ideas for the future of healthcare. (Participants even kept the debate going after the chat had "officially" ended).
Blog DesignWell
By frog healthcare group - June 3, 2009
According to the American Cancer Society, only two-thirds of women 40 and older report having had a mammogram in the last two years. Fear and discomfort are some of the primary reasons women give for avoiding them, and it’s no wonder − mammograms have a reputation for being a cold, uncomfortable and often painful experience. Fellow frog Laura Richardson blogged about her own discomforting experience with her first mammogram here not too long ago.
Blog DesignWell
By frog healthcare group - June 1, 2009
We are excited to announce that our next twitter chat for #frogHealth will take place on Thursday June 4th, 2009 at 12:30pm ET. The topic for this edition is Connected Home Health, which we loosely define as connected ecosystems of people, devices, and services to better manage health and wellness at home.
Please join frog design (@frogdesign) and use the #frogHealth tag. Our past discussions have been very lively, deeply insightful, and fun for all of our participants. We hope that you can join and make it a great event.
Blog DesignWell
By frog healthcare group - April 6, 2009
Last week I asked two friends what they thought about emerging technology in healthcare. One is a second year resident at a well-respected hospital. The other is in the last year of dental school and will soon be off for a residency in pediatric dentistry. Their comments below give me great hope for the future.
Curiously, they both failed to capitalize their sentences. I feel that there is an important insight in that fact, yet I can't quite put my finger on it. But I digress...
Blog DesignWell
By frog healthcare group - April 1, 2009
About 4 weeks ago, I went for an annual physical and had standard blood work done. I was told to call back in a week, and of course I forgot. Today I had a message that said: "hello, this is Dr. XX's office, please call us back at xxx-xxx-xxxx". That was it – the person didn't identify herself and also didn't say what the call was for. When I dialed the number I was expecting to be told that I owed them money. But actually, the woman on the phone had no idea why she had called me.
Blog DesignWell
By frog healthcare group - February 27, 2009
I had my first mammogram on Friday. Like most designers, I can’t divorce myself from my unique way of perceiving the world. So, you can imagine the difficulty I have with a routine screening and the very sensorial experience of a little examining room and its inappropriately sized “mammo-slam” machine. I wanted the full, virgin tour of what many women, including my mother, have denounced as a horribly, painful moment. (There’s only one first, and at my age, there aren’t many of those anymore.) I asked the doe-eyed technician to explain the procedure for me since it was all new, but perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered because my own internal designer dialogue was doing enough talking. A series of sensory impressions washed over me … “This reminds me of the game Twister,” “Why am I wearing a gown if it keeps coming off?” and “Relax, you’re just a dancer, and she is choreographing your body.”
