Tuesday evening (November 13), I attended the meetup for Healthcare Experience Engineers in Philadelphia.
It was the first event of theirs I’ve attended, and the session was ultra relevant for my role of leading design for a platform built to support strategic healthcare decisions. It was hosted at Elsevier, with the keen experience sharing of Julie Guinn, UX Lead, Precision Medicine.
Below, I share some of my notes from the night.
Healthcare presents specific challenges
Examples of factors that create these specific challenges are:
Specialization
Siloing
Legacy
High-Stakes
Regulations
These require design tools to be used that help to illuminate complexity.
System Design components that can be mapped:
Elements
Connections
Purpose
Boundary & Environment
“Complex, Adaptive Socio-Technical Systems” such as Healthcare systems multiply these factors.
The first goal of a system-affecting project is to make the system visible
This may seem obvious to a designer, but getting stakeholders involved in this process is eye opening and gives a realistic picture of what the project team is dealing with. An important aspect of this process is creating the map as a team because everyone has a different understanding from their point of view (as evidenced in our “draw how to make toast” exercise).
Laying it out visually also creates opportunities for where conversation in more detail can be prioritized. It often helps to emphasize gaps, and/or who else should be involved earlier on in the process.
Maps & Diagrams
Julie presented several types of mapping tools and what they can be useful for. This included a hands on activity where we explored the relationships between system forces in Telehealth Adoption. This helped to identify parts of a system which affect other parts the most, and to spot prominent factors you can most consider to influence with design (or at the very least, know what you’re up against!). The diagram helped us to see system drivers and outcomes.
It was awesome to chat with other practitioners, and learn together. I found this session immediately applicable, and thought of a few ways to utilize what I’ve learned in the near future. I look forward to sharing applications of these complexity-clarifying concepts with the prospect of leading change.
Thanks, Julie and Kurt!
Resources from the event
Julie recommended:
You can find Julie on Twitter @JulieAGuinn