“We know that health care industry is very transactional, and we want to inject empathy,” Amy Cueva, founder and chief experience officer of Mad*Pow, told attendees at the Cleveland Clinic Patient Experience Summit this week.
“But the logistics of healthcare are difficult,” she acknowledged.
Mad*Pow is a Connecticut firm with experience designing patient- and clinician-facing systems. Healthcare, education, and behavioral change are some of founder Amy Cueva’s passions.
Cueva and Dr. Will Morris, associate CIO at Cleveland Clinic, joined Dr. Michael Roizen, chair of the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, to discuss how technology is changing care for both patients and caregivers.
The three share the same approach: technology and design should take a backseat to the behaviors they hope to change.
Technology should not be something that is done to you; rather, it should be something that works with you, Morris said.
“Think about glasses. Technology needs to be like that – an enabler, not a distraction.”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
One classic example Morris would like to see change: the doctor’s office waiting room – specifically, he’d like to see the wait itself change.
“Maybe when you park, you can also check in,” and process your co-pay, Morris mused. Maybe instead of waiting for the doctor, the doctor will be told, “the patient will see you now,” he said.
He hopes that technology can affect such fundamental changes in doctors’ offices and hospitals so “maybe technology will allow you (the caregiver) to get back to why you got into healthcare,” Morris said.
Cueva is similarly driven to see technology improve patient experiences and outcomes, and caregivers’ work – and lives.
Six healthcare watch words
Cueva and Morris were tasked to identify six key words that illustrate how technology can be used to improve healthcare for both patients and caregivers.
Here’s their list:
Connection – Morris waved his pager at the audience. “Yes we still use pagers,” he said. Sometimes “we are so enamored of the shiny ball that we don’t think about its usefulness.”
In a doctor’s office, he said, “if I’m filling stuff out on monitor, I’m not listening to you (the patient),” he said.
Cueva laughed at Morris’s pager but agreed with his analogy. “We need to figure out what kind of connections we want to create and then look at technology available to do that, “ Cueva said. “Using the right technology at the right time to enable communication and break down barriers.”
Recognition – Cueva and Morris both discussed the need to recognize how technology can be used to personalize the healthcare experience. Not everyone wants to be called “sir,” or “ma’am,” Morris said. But such seemingly simple matters – that can make a big difference in patient experience – are not so easily managed.
“How do we seamlessly inject into the workflow what a person wants to be called?” Morris asked.
Cueva said that the key to designing systems that work for both caregivers and patients is involving them in the technology development process.
“It involves bringing those people to table and not designing in a vacuum,” she said.
Relief – “Technology should be the wind at our back, not the wind in our faces,” Cueva said. “But we are putting in technology that gets in the way,” she conceded.
Morris said he’s seeing less “boilerplate technology” and more that is designed to benefit healthcare professionals and consumers.
“I think there’s relief on patient side, but there’s also relief on caregiver side,” he said.
As an example, he pointed to mobile technology that allows doctors to leave the hospital after patient surgeries yet remain in touch with rounding nurses and physicians, “and walk in next morning with critical information,” about difficult cases.
Transparency – Morris said when feedback from a survey comes two weeks after the fact, “sometimes that’s too late.” While an open record (such as is used at the Clinic) can make caregivers and institutions feel “vulnerable,” an open record is also important, he said.
Empowerment – Cueva said patients “are informed and smart consumers. … enhancing the information is putting power into their hands.”
Morris agreed.
“You (the patient) spend one day in my office. How are we empowering you the other 364?”
Efficiency – Cueva said, “I get approached by doctors all the time asking, ‘Can you fix my EMR?’ I wish I could – and I’m working on it!”
Technology solutions cannot fix all the problems inherent in our healthcare system, Cueva noted. “But we can learn from other industries to manage the avoidable problems of healthcare,” she said.
Image: Bigstock
