HealthRedesigned: Recent Episodes
Hanno
Conversations on developing digital products for better health and wellness, presented by the team from Hanno.
It might sound like a tough ask supporting both healthcare corporations and startups. But Matter makes it sound simple: deprogram corporate managers and reprogram entrepreneurs. Matter is a healthcare startup incubator, community nexus and corporate innovation accelerator. Even though no company is quite ever the same, CEO Steven Collens has seen first-hand what the successful ones have in common. He joins Hanno to share insights from the heart of healthcare.
Timestamps* What Matter does (3:19) * Space for serendipity (6:41) * Solving problems as a startup vs corporation (7:54) * How a large organisation can get in to faster iterative feedback loops (13:05) * Generating market insights (16:44) * Supporting entrepreneurs (18:57) * Cross-pollination between corporates and startups (21:19) * The common solutions companies want to solve (27:23) * Mindset of collaborating, not competing (29:07) * What the future of healthcare is shaping to be like (30:04) * The biggest barrier to healthcare innovation (32:50) * Startups at Matter (37:30) * What first three roles Steven would hire for a new team (42:12)
Key Links* Matter * Twitter * LinkedIn * Healthcare by 2040 * Babylon Health * HealthRedesigned with Babylon Health * Regroup
How do you redesign a primary care clinic and its services so it’s built for today? Can we tailor experiences to the psychology of the patients? Can we design tools for clinicians that balance disrupting their workflows with creating efficiencies? We chat to Kerem Suer, VP of Design at Carbon Health to find out more. Tune in to discover how intentionality in design is bringing the online and the offline much closer together.
Timestamps* Mission (0:54) * Kerem’s role in the company (1:37) * What does it mean to design for an experience (2:14) * Online & offline accessibility (4:23) * Core strengths of software within experience (5:19) * Tensions between disrupting workflows and creating efficiencies (9:34) * Intentionality in the design process (12:13) * Learning about audience (16:59) * Three core Carbon principles (18:54) * Traversing the line between software and physical spaces (20:51) * Creating physical spaces (25:29) * Biggest learning of becoming an experience designer? (30:18)
Key Links* Carbon Health’s Website * Twitter * LinkedIn * Instagram
Now you might be thinking what exactly is the role of an anthropologist in digital health? We speak to Eva Vankilde, anthropologist and specialist in patient insights at NovoNordisk to find out. Join us as we deep dive into what it actually means to be an anthropologist in health, how it differs from things like user research and how building empathy is a sure fire way of navigating the complexity of creating services for people living with chronic conditions.
Timestamps* The role of an anthropologist (1:38) * Where anthropology goes beyond user research (2:45) * Overlaps with user research (4:21) * Seeing diabetes through multiple lenses (9:43) * Kicking off a project (11:25) * Building empathy (13:40) * Surprising insights in the field (19:39) * Embracing chronicity (26:52) * Relaying insights back to the team to enable action and innovation (32:08) * How to introduce anthropology into your organisation (39:38) * The exciting advancing technologies that are helping diabetes (43:22)
Key Links* NovoNordisk * Twitter * LinkedIn * Eva’s LinkedIn
With new apps and health technology flourishing, the exponential rise of health data feels inevitable. But what can we do to ensure patients' data is ethically and securely handled in the products we create? We chat to Irene Ng, Market Design Economist and CEO of DataSwift about the power of personal data accounts and what it could mean for healthcare.
Timestamps* Health, wealth and data (1:40) * Personal data servers (4:38) * Personalisation of healthcare and computation (8:17) * Personal data accounts and interoperability (12:35) * Apple and Google Hub as health hubs (13:27) * Protecting users from centralised health hubs (13:57) * Empowering people with health data (15:35) * Creating standards for new apps to emerge (17:40) * Bringing economists into the healthcare space (18:22) * Health systems liberating personal data (19:39) * How to become more knowledgeable with data in the health space (21:39)
Key Links* Dataswift’s Website * Dataswift HAT Server * Dataswift’s Twitter * University of Warwick * HAT: Hub-of-all-Things * EthicalTechAlliance.org * European Commission * World Economic Forum
Technology has made a huge leap to democratising access to healthcare. But to truly make this a reality, we need to be sure we’re hearing all voices in society. Ranging from who is in your team, to who you’re interviewing in your research: are all voices being heard? André Blackman, CEO of Onboard Health, has discovered that to build a healthy community we need shared narratives that enable us to co-create solutions.
Timestamps* Getting into the public health space (3:08) * Progress in health over the past 15 years (7:58) * Company success stories (11:35) * The power of visual storytelling (14:40) * Musings from The Sustain or Die Manifesto (15:41) * Democratising health access (16:12) * The importance of more design in healthcare (20:41) * Tensions between public health & scaling innovation (22:11) * Why technology itself is not the full solution to health concerns (25:27) * Advice for the next generation of health innovators (27:52) * The five roles he’d hire first if he started a health company today (28:57)
Key Links* Onboard Health Website * André’s Twitter * Onboard’s Twitter * Pulse and Signal Blog * ‘Why Healthcare Needs Designers’ blog post * TEDMED * Aspen Ideas Festival * Commencement Address at University of Maryland, 2016 * HealthRedesigned with Omada Health * Cityblock Health * Sidewalk Labs * Dell Medical School * The Fast Forward Health Film Festival * The Sustain or Die Manifesto * The Khan Academy * Susannah Fox * Chip and Dan Heath * Playworks Organisation * KaBoom! * Dr Lisa Fitzpatrick * BJ Fogg * Steph Habif from Tandem Diabetes
Like many companies we’ve interviewed on the show, Zero is no exception to setting a bold mission. Theirs is to “help people around the world harness the power of fasting to live healthier and longer lives”. But how do you transform a relatively daunting health practice and make it accessible, fun and most importantly achievable? We chat to Matthew Silva the Head of Product at Zero to find out more.
Timestamps* The rise in fasting’s popularity (1:09) * Alcohol consumption and mindful drinking (4:12) * How the Zero journey started (6:19) * Making fasting accessible through technology (8:58) * Building the Zero community and group fasting (11:10) * Mood tracking whilst fasting (13:47) * Building ‘keystone’ habits (17:30) * The next step in the product journey after building self-awareness (19:30) * Parallels with the personal finance space (24:42) * Matt’s role as Head of Product (27:39) * Building the Fast Journal (29:30) * Potential new features for the app (31:17)
Key Links* Zero’s Website * Zero’s Twitter * Zero’s LinkedIn * Saved by Zero by Mike Maser * Zero’s Chief Medical Officer Peter Attia * Zero Q&A with Rhonda Patrick and Mike Maser * LessDrinks.com * City group fasts * FitBit * FitCoach * Headspace * Dishoom * #BreakFastWithZero * Jerry Seinfeld ‘Night vs Morning guy’ * ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matt Walker
What are the guiding design principles that we are going to use when creating new health products for the 21st century? Can we preserve and elevate the relationships between the clinician and the patients with good design? In this episode we chat with Dr. Bon Ku, co-author of Health Design Thinking, to discuss how the role of design in healthcare can transform the industry.
Timestamps* Learnings interviewing designers, adapted to the health space (3:27) * Examples in the book of how design has been applied to healthcare (6:20) * Describing human centered design or design thinking to healthcare professionals (9:40) * Design having a seat at the table (12:46) * Human centred products and trust (14:36) * Practical methods and guiding principles (16:47) * Implementing learnings from the book as a healthcare leader (23:52) * Sneaking in design (27:55) * What designers can learn from healthcare professionals (34:04) * ROI in design and healthcare (36:26) * Undervaluing the role of design in healthcare (38:00) * How space impacts health (39:39)
Key Links* Health Design Thinking * PillPack * Hanno Echo Episode * MASS Design Group * Kieran Timberlake * Dr Bon Ku’s Twitter * Ellen Lupton’s Twitter
Getting medicine into people’s hands is not easy. Encouraging patients to stick to their medication can be even trickier. Can the psychological obstacles patients face be solved with an app? Echo is an online repeat prescription service determined to answer that question. As the original end-user of his very own product, co-founder Stephen Bourke has been on the front lines of their mission to simplify pharmacy. In this episode we discuss how design bleeds into all facets of his business and why convenience really is the key to medical adherence.
Timestamps* Echo’s Mission (1:20) * Removing the barriers to medical adherence (4:30) * A more honest relationship with technology (9:39) * The rise of convenience in healthcare (11:45) * Design & Simplifying Pharmacy (14:46) * On pragmatism and prioritisation (19:03) * Improving health outcomes (20:47) * Where comparisons to consumer tech breakdown (23:14) * Underpinning waste in the healthcare system (27:52) * Measuring success (31:06) * Data & Privacy (34:45)
Key Links* Echo’s Website * Echo’s Twitter * Echo’s LinkedIn * McKesson * Lloyds Pharmacy * Never mind the Blockchain, we need to fix the basics * 23andMe * WHO * [NICE] (https://www.nice.org.uk/) * Dr Doctor * Patchwork * Zesty * Infinity Health * Stephen’s LinkedIn * Stephen’s Twitter
Babylon’s goal is to provide affordable and accessible healthcare to everyone in the world. It’s a big mission that certainly demands a tribe of top talent. In under 14 months, the Babylon design team alone has scaled from 4 to almost 90 employees. Navigating this rapid growth has been scale up specialist and Director of Product Design, Jane Austin. In this episode we discuss the impact design has had on the company, both externally and internally, on their journey to becoming a global health service provider.
Timestamps* What is Babylon Health? (1:04) * Working with the team in Rwanda (2:52) * Beyond telemedicine (4:03) * The challenges of marketing a multi-use app (5:28) * Jane’s role in the business as Director of Product Design (7:41) * The role of design operations (9:09) * The growing importance of design for Babylon (10:08) * What they look for as a member of their design team (11:24) * Developing the right company culture (12:32) * How and why they treat the design system as an internal product (15:25) * The Rwandan vs UK market (17:31) * The power of storytelling for designers (18:23) * Empowered, autonomous teams (21:20) * Humanising data (23:55)
Key Links* Babylon * ‘Diagnosis on Demand? The Computer Will See You Now’ – Babylon Documentary * Monitor * Spotify Squads * Jane's Twitter
It’s hard to imagine the cognitive load for a caregiver with a child who has Type 1 diabetes. There are hundreds of decisions to make each day and none of them trivial. Technological advances have gone a long way to helping, but more often than not, they only contribute to the overwhelming amount of information caregivers have to process. Is there a way in which we can use technology to ease that burden rather than add to it? In this episode we talk to Dan Korelitz about his journey as a parent to find a better way to manage his son’s diabetes.
Timestamps* Dan’s story (1:34) * A tale of two Emmetts (4:20) * A day in the life of a parent of a child with type 1 diabetes (5:11) * The cognitive load of managing diabetes (7:46) * Hacking an Alexa (10:08) * How a finance background led to the app being created (14:05) * What makes the Emmett app different (19:32)
Key Links* Emmett Youtube Video * Emmett Skill Demo * Dan’s LinkedIn
So much of a patient’s story is being collected and documented in digital tools. Can we learn from these narratives to transform the patient experience and accelerate research? Hear how Director of Product Design at Flatiron Coulton Bunney is using design to help in this complex and meaningful space.
Timestamps* What Flatiron Health is all about (2:04) * Designing for multiple stakeholders (4:33) * Keeping the design process consistent (7:02) * The role of Product Operations (11:48) * Liquid expectations - A Doctor's enthusiasm for design (17:20) * Co-creation and collaboration in the healthcare (21:24) * Core leadership principles (26:41) * The future of technology & oncology (30:36) * Leveraging data to drive clinical research (38:30) * How each cancer patient's story is a powerful legacy (43:35)
Key Links* Onco Cloud 2020 * ‘Living with Complexity’ by Donald Norman * Medicaid * Flatiron Health * ‘Designing To Actually Improve Lives’ by By Henry Bayuzick * Flatiron Health’s Blog * Coulton Bunney
What do we mean by health? Is it the absence of disease? If you're not sick, then one could argue you're healthy. But is that looking at the glass half empty, rather than full?
The WHO defines health as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” So what steps can we take to create a health ecosystem that has human flourishing as its organising principle rather than just the treatment of disease?
In this episode we consider this question from multiple perspectives of the fragmented health ecosystem and discuss how they can unify around a holistic, human-centred approach to the challenges that lie ahead.
Timestamps* Doctors being usurped by AI (03:12) * What do we mean by AI? (05:26) * What an ideal healthcare system of 21st century looks like (11:03) * Our healthcare system at a glance today (15:49) * Unpicking what we mean by health (18:41) * How to measure flourishing health (22:24) * Possible future career opportunities in health and life coaching (32:54) * Thinking about health through an ecosystem (37:47) * The evolution of Eastern and Western medicine (39:48) * Level of cooperation to strive for between technologies (50:26) * Guarding healthcare from capitalistic tendencies (54:27) * The consequences of indifference (1:08:22) * The fundamental impact of data (1:10:50)
Key Links* Previous episode with Andy Wilkins * Sir David Sloman * Beyond The Fog report * Luciano Floridi * Vision4Health.org
High blood pressure is a silent killer. Measuring it is not the problem – instead it’s the seemingly straightforward task of recording patient medical history, over time, that causes the biggest clinical barrier to providing effective care.
It is in developing countries where this burden is most pronounced. Under huge demand, appointment times with patients can be under 4 minutes long, and the strain on clinicians to keep track of everything can be overwhelming.
In this episode we talk to Daniel Burka, the Director of Design at Resolve To Save Lives, to discuss how designing a stripped back EMR (electronic medical record) with a healthy dose of essentialism is enabling healthcare workers to manage blood pressure at scale in India and beyond.
TimestampsImplications of high blood pressure [3:33]
Why we need more notes for longitudinal care [6:23]
Learnings from their first trip to Punjab [7:44]
Measuring time saved [11:35]
How the Simple app works [12:17]
The bare minimum data needed for medical records [14:30]
The individual clinician vs public initiative tension [15:51]
Having a strong user-research program [17:44]
The need to change systems training with staff [19:10]
Getting the Simple app into the hands of clinicians [21:30]
The Simulated Hypertension Clinic and learnings from their field research [26:18]
Other metrics they use to guide the design process [36:34]
The challenges to workflow working at scale [41:42]
Open-sourcing approach to break down silos in digital health [48:12]
Coming into the health world from the tech world as a designer [51:33]
Next big steps for Simple [57:28]
Key LinksSimple.org
The Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) Hypertension program
WHO
ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research)
Dr Tom Fiedan
Daniel’s Medium blog
Michael Margolis from GV
Flat Iron Health
Foundation Medicine
Blue Bottle Coffee
Mozilla
Medic Mobile
E-health Kerala
Zero Fasting
ZipLine
Daniel’s Twitter
User experience needs to be intuitive and seamless for any digital platform. For such a large, sophisticated wellness platform built by Vitality, this is indoctrinated in the company’s culture. Their core goal is to grow and maintain healthy living across society by rewarding people – the first of its kind for a health insurance business. There needs to be a win-win offering for all stakeholders to sustain this goal, which is why they believe in the idea of ‘shared value’.
Partnering with leading companies like Apple and Amazon, Vitality continues to develop their membership programs – and challenge their own propositions as they grow.
Join Hanno and Dave as they uncover how a large organisation stays innovative, invests in the design process, and how they build their programs based on behavioural economics.
Timestamps * The Founders’ behind Vitality from the mid-90s, and what the company is about today (1:49) * Vitality’s goals (4:09) * The sophisticated wellness programs they run (6:04) * The key areas they focus on to deliver wellness programs (13:16) * Lessons learnt from behavioural analysis (15:39) * The largest study on behavioural change and physical activity, by RAND (18:42) * How to apply behavioural economics to all businesses, beyond health and wellness (21:40) * What is shared value insurance? (22:40) * Handling challenges on a day to day basis (26:49) * The role of R&D in their organisation (27:58) * Health and wellness trends to expect over the next ten years (28:56) * Other health activities Vitality plan to track (30:07) * How to set environments at work that drive innovation (38:04) * The benefits to Vitality’s approach to design (42:43)
Connect with Vitality * Vitality’s website * Discovery’s website * Vitality’s partners and rewards * Twitter * Facebook * LinkedIn
Further Reading * Incentives and physical activity by RAND (2018)
Open up a newspaper or check your favourite blog, chances are you’ll find something about yet another new technology promising to transform the world around us. But it’s less often that we hear about businesses finding meaningful use cases for these innovations - especially when it comes to those often overlooked by techs rapid advances.
An outlier to this is inventor Dr Stephen Hicks’ smart glasses company Oxsight. Using augmented reality and machine learning, the glasses enhance sight for the visually impaired. Everyday things like playing cards, going to the cinema or even watching your child swim for the first time all become possible.
Join Hanno and Stephen as they traverse the world of science fiction, sight experiments, and the potential of AI powered user interfaces to empower people with disabilities and beyond.
Timestamps * Oxsight in a Nutshell (4:00) * Almost Fiction: Retinal Prosthetics (6:56) * Doing something important with neuroscience and design (9:20) * Understanding blindness (12:27) * Blindspots and how to find our own (14:49) * How blindspots and visual perception relate to Oxsight (18:46) * Oxsight displays and their success in aiding the visually impaired (21:20) * Why visual prosthetics? (23:14) * Designing the glasses (26:39) * Oxsight Crystal and Oxysight Prism (29:34) * The woman who watched her daughter swim for the first time (30:30) * The importance of emotional testimonies (34:29) * Oxsight looks to the future (38:00) * Support Oxsight (46:06)
Connect with Oxsight * Their website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram * YouTube
Links from the show * Neuromancer * Geordi La Forge * Five AI
We all know it. Going to the doctor these days can be confusing, inconvenient and stressful. As a result, things like telemedicine apps have sprung up to skip out the doctor’s office entirely and they’re rapidly gaining popularity - but will relying on technology alone be the best way to boost health outcomes?
One Medical believe it’s about more than just providing thoughtful technology. Instead it’s about integrating the best digital experiences with stylish & calming clinical spaces that you can go to not only when you’re sick, but also when you want to improve your long-term health and wellness.
Join Hanno and David as they discuss how design is a driving force behind their mission to change how we visit the doctor. Touching upon how and why healthtech needs to balance getting things done, with doing things right.
Timestamps * The Business of One Medical (3:30) * Redesigning the Doctor’s Visit (5:30) * Prevention: Cutting Costs in Healthcare (6:41) * Design and Experience: The Backbone of One Medical (8:08) * Normalising healthcare as a part of daily life (9:48) * David Hoang: Product Design Head (11:37) * Tech as a Facilitator: Maintaining the human element with technological design (13:36) * Changing the healthcare perspective to empower the patients (15:10) * Proactive Care: Facilitating engagement outside the doctor’s office (17:44) * Preserving Quality, Cutting Costs (19:45) * Secret to Success: a match made in heaven between top tech designers and top healthcare providers (24:34) * Feedback: The second secret ingredient (25:40) * Member transparency for an interconnected healthcare system (27:57) * Why are so many designers coming into the health space now? (34:08) * Make Haste Slowly: The prototype models in One Medical (39:25) * Designing with the user in mind (49:34) * The Ultimate Goal: Transforming healthcare for all (54:00)
As genetic testing becomes more mainstream, the potential lying beyond novelty products revealing your ancestry is staggering. In healthcare, DNA sequencing is already providing real medical value, but its costs have largely limited it to individuals at high-risk of disease, already working with specialists.
Color believes that genomics should be brought further upstream and used as a preventive tool for whole populations of people. Making clinical genetics accessible as part of routine care would mean spotting the likelihood of disease, understanding risk, and paving the way for tailored interventions at scale, way ahead of time.
Join Hanno and Wendy as they explore the role design, genetics and technology play in the movement from ‘sickcare’ to affordable, preventative healthcare, covering everything from Google HEART design principles and genetic counselors to DNA sequencing labs.
Timestamps * What is Color? (1:08) * Making genomic testing more accessible to the general population (5:00) * How is Color providing genomic testing in a way that keeps its users engaged? (7:04) * Who are the main people that interact with Color? (10:13) * With results ranging from harmless personal insight to more serious matters like hereditary cancers, how does Color help its users process and share that information? (11:27) * The importance of genetics in healthcare and its impact on Color’s brand (14:06) * The role of genetic counselors in healthcare (15:00) * Color’s CLIA-certified and CAP-accredited genetic sequencing lab (17:52) * The future of genomics in personalised healthcare (22:24) * Addressing lack of innovation in the healthcare system (26:00) * How is design playing a role in helping foster innovation? (28:30) * UX design in healthcare - Google HEART metrics and the other design processes (30:11) * What is going to be the biggest benefit for the community with this new knowledge of understanding our bodies? (40:00)
Connect with Color * The Color Website * Twitter * LinkedIn * Facebook * Instagram
Further Reading * Google HEART Framework
With AI and machine learning creeping its way into more areas of our lives, we often hear stories about how technology is going to automate and eliminate the role human beings play in the workplace and beyond.
Honor sees things a little differently. On a mission to modernise the care older adults receive in their own homes as they age, Honor is using technology to amplify the human factor not minimise it, when it comes to improving the lives of older adults, their loved ones and the professionals that care for them.
Join Hanno and Olivia as they explore how to walk the tightrope between powerful software, meaningful relationships and thoughtful design.
Timestamps * Why is it so important for people to be taken care of in their own homes? (6:03) * How do you help an aging population that is unfamiliar with tech get used to using your product independently? (8:57) * Who is primarily interacting with your service? (10:51) * The three core experiences: client, care pro, loved ones (11:53) * What is the benefit of using Honor from a care professional perspective? (12:52) * Honor’s mission is to remove unnecessary friction between carers and clients (16:15) * Allowing clients to see stats about potential care professionals before they engage in a relationship with them (18:00) * Transparency and its importance for care professionals (18:56) * What are the benefits of mediationg the relationship between care professionals and clients? (22:46) * How do you ensure that the human side of these relationships being fostered by tech are genuine? (24:43) * How is Honor providing stability and easing stress for care professionals? (32:30) * Preserving the integrity of the company and maintaining its core values at scale (35:00) * Balancing global tools and innovation on the local level (38:28) * What is the role of design in the company? (39:00)
Connect with Honor on: * Their website * The Honor podcast * Twitter
Here's a taster of the trends we cover:
- Socio-technological From what's the matter with you to what matters to you.
"The role of technology in people's lives is going to be very different. Their expectations of what could be achieved and delivered through digital technologies in the area of health and well-being is going to be very different in 10 to 15 years time."
- Systems Biology Understanding health on a molecular and environmental level
"If we're truly serious about getting on top of health we have to step outside of the clinical realm and start to get to grips with the factors that influence people's poor health."
- Personalised Medicine Optimising and individualising treatments
"Rather than treating disease when it manifests itself in organs, we will go right back to DNA protein generating processes that kick off a cascading sequence of events that then arrive at things like dementia or heart disease or diabetes."
- MedTech Innovation Changing where and how health is provided
"Big expensive equipment often housed in secondary care locations is increasingly being miniaturised with software and algorithms packed into it. Things done by specialists will start to move to lower cost environments."
- Data and AI Powered Health Mapping the universe of the human body
"The knowledge gained from observing and capturing all of this data will give us new insights that will become incredibly important helping people to manage themselves."
- Psychology of Health Rewriting the role of healthcare
"We need to understand what people need and want from healthcare because if we don't we'll have all this technological capability but we won't be able to engage people in ways that take this new information and make it empowering."
Download the full report here
Since its July 1 launch, NHSX is now leading the largest digital health and social care transformation programme in the world. It's mission is to give staff and citizens the tech they need to diagnose diseases earlier, free up time and empower people to take greater control of their own healthcare. And they’re calling all digital health innovators to be part of the journey.
On this week’s episode of HealthRedesigned, we sit down with Chief Digital Officer, Tara Donnelly to see how they’re shaping the future of health.
Myia is the intelligent remote health monitoring platform designed for patients and for clinicians to address serious chronic conditions such as heart failure, hypertension, and diabetes. Myia transforms streams of personal, vital health data into actionable insights on patient condition, empowering clinicians to take better and more timely action, prevent costly medical events, and ultimately set new standards of care.
76% of young people with mental health issues never get treated, 50% of all adult mental health issues begin by age 14, 1 in 5 people self harm by the age of 16. The list of obstacles facing today’s youth goes on and the statistics show it. Alleviating the harm done during these formative years and ensuring solid foundations are built for future success is a social media application. You read that right, enter: Meetwo. Developed to help empower young people ride the turbulence of being a teen, MeeTwo is a peer-to-peer support app designed to function like other social media platforms on the market. Albeit with different intentions.
HealthRedesigned sits down with one of MeeTwo’s founders, Kerstyn Comley, to discuss the importance of teenage empowerment and how MeeTwo helps young people do that.
There are 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK today. This number is set to rise in the coming years. Tending to the needs of this growing population is the focus of UK’s Alzheimer’s Society.
The most pressing issue facing the organization is accessibility of digital services to people affected with dementia. Due to the nature of the disease, resources have to be made radically easy to access, follow and navigate. Solving this problem for an organization founded in the late 70s meant major changes and a new perspective.
This week, HealthRedesigned sat down with two ushers of this evolution, senior digital manager Imogen Levy and UX researcher John Dickens, to break down exactly how these changes are occurring and their importance as the charity looks to the future.
Staying motivated to complete your health goals when faced with a chronic illness can feel overwhelming. Omada Health want to fix that by changing lives, one small habit at a time. Pioneers in digital behavioural medicine, they are building the tools and support systems to empower people across the chronic disease spectrum to set and reach their health goals.
Joining us on this episode of HealthRedesigned is Patrick Weiss, Senior Director of Product Design at Omada Health.
Women are waiting longer than ever to have children. When they are ready to, they often find themselves in the dark about their fertility until they have reached the clinicians office. What if there was a way to get hold of this information earlier to make better more informed decisions about family planning whilst staying on top of your reproductive health?
Modern Fertility is a women's health company based in San Francisco that's focused on making fertility information more accessible to women everywhere. Offering the first comprehensive fertility hormone test you can take at home, alongside a dashboard to view your fertility profile directly on your phone or computer.
Joining us on this episode of HealthRedesigned is Afton Vechery the CEO and Co-founder of Modern Fertility.
If you end up in a hospital unable to contact your loved ones or communicate with a doctor what would you do? That was the question Cat Noone asked herself before going on to launch Iris - the app that sends alerts to those closest to you and informs the doctor of your health data in emergency situations. Now the company is going one step further helping customers to track their everyday health so that emergencies that could be preventable don't happen in the first place.
The way we eat has a significant impact on our health and wellbeing. But finding the time to research and plan what and how we eat prevents a lot of us from living healthier lives. Methodology is a food-as-medicine delivery service that wants to change that by providing ready-to-eat meals, designed around your health goals, straight to your door.
Joining us on this episode of HealthRedesigned is Julie Nguyen the CEO and co-founder of Methodology.
Having quick, reliable access to mental health services can be life-saving. But more often than not people find multiple barriers in their way when it comes to getting help. Healios is a digital healthcare company that’s set out to change that. Reimagining the way children, young people and adults interact with mental health services, Healios combines technology with specialized clinical expertise to provide care for patients from the comfort of their own homes, exactly when they need it.
Joining us on this episode of Health Redesigned is Richard Andrews the Chairman and CEO of Healios
Knowing what’s going on in your body is essential to making the right decisions when it comes to your health and wellness.### But getting hold of information about your health can be a struggle - not to mention expensive! And when you do finally receive your data it can be baffling to make sense of it all.
Based in London, LiveSmart is a digital health platform that’s set out to make health assessments simple, accessible and actionable. Combining blood tests, online health reports and remote one-to-one coaching, LiveSmart uses a blend of technology, people power and behavioural change techniques to help people improve their health and wellness.
Joining us on this episode of HealthRedesigned is Mat Griffiths Product Manager and UX Designer at LiveSmart.
Performing operations repeatedly and constantly being exposed to different procedures can make all the difference in a surgeon’s career. But as a surgical trainee, performing these procedures can be daunting, especially if you’ve had little to no real experience with a particular procedure. So how do you prepare for a surgery in a way that’s safe and convenient?
Based in London and New York, Touch Surgery is a surgical simulator that uses 3D rendered content to help healthcare professionals learn about surgical procedures and rehearse for surgery. It’s available for free as a mobile app—giving anyone, anywhere the opportunity to learn about and practice over 100 surgical procedures that span 15 specialities.
Joining us on this episode of HealthRedesigned is Ali Bahsoun, Product Lead and Fiona MacDougall, Senior UX Designer at Touch Surgery.
Meditation has been proven to improve our well-being, but it’s not unusual to sometimes wonder if it’s actually making a difference. This self-doubt can sometimes throw people off the practice, especially beginners, and lead them to believe that meditation isn’t right for them. Based in San Francisco, Core Wellness is hoping to give people more confidence around meditating and encourage them to build on the habit.
They’ve created a physical device, Core, that people can hold in their hands while meditating. It connects to an app and emits vibrations to guide users through exercises while the biosensors embedded in the device track health data—allowing users to see that meditation is, in fact, having a positive effect on their bodies.
Joining us on this episode of HealthRedesigned is Sarah McDevitt, Founder and CEO of Core Wellness.
Connect with Core Wellness on: * Core Wellness’ website * Twitter * Instagram
Most young people now expect to find services online, including support for their emotional wellbeing. While face to face counselling is a great way to address mental health issues, many young people are unable to access such services or may sometimes prefer to anonymously talk about their problems.
Kooth is a digital platform for young people to on-demand get mental health support that's developed by XenZone, a pioneer of online counselling services in the UK that’s been improving access to mental health services for children, young people and adults over the last 20 years.
In this episode of HealthRedesigned, we chat with Elaine Bousfield, Founder and Chair of XenZone. She shares how XenZone works with local authorities to provide a blended approach, delivering mental health services that are more holistic and accessible.
Connect with XenZone on: * XenZone’s website * Twitter * Facebook * YouTube
More and more healthcare professionals in the UK are turning to Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger to communicate at work. Since the 1960s and even till today, doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff in the UK are still expected to communicate at work via radio pagers, which is why most of them have switched to mobile instant messaging apps.
But the problem with these apps is that the patient data that's being put on these platforms isn’t being handled in a way that’s legal and safe, putting sensitive patient information at risk. They’re also not built with the kind of features to help doctors and nurses to be more efficient at their jobs.
Built by a team of tech-savvy junior doctors in the UK, Forward is an app for healthcare professionals to communicate with their teams as well as other healthcare professionals while sharing patient information securely and managing tasks more efficiently. Joining us on this episode of HealthRedesigned, Dr Barney Gilbert, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Forward.
Listen to this episode on Hanno's website
Connect with Forward on: * Forward’s website * Twitter * Facebook
A physician’s time should be spent diagnosing and treating patients rather than spending hours pouring over a patient’s test data. While medical tests like Electrocardiograms or ECGs are easy to record, they can be complex and time-consuming to interpret due to the many patterns and abnormalities that can be present in the data—and physicians have to remember and recognise each one of them.
But what if artificial intelligence could be leveraged to do the heavy lifting of the analysing part instead? Cardiologs, a French startup has built a cardiology analysis platform powered by artificial intelligence to help healthcare professionals detect heart abnormalities from ECG data quicker and more effectively.
In this episode of HealthRedesigned, we chat with Chiara Scabellone, a Product Manager at Cardiologs who tells us how the company plans to create intelligent cardiology tools to help physicians manage cardiac patients at scale and make high-quality cardiology accessible to all.
Listen to this episode on Hanno's website
Connect with Cardiologs on: * Cardiologs website * Twitter * Facebook
Things like staircases, escalators and lifts often make navigating indoors difficult for visually impaired people. But what if it was possible for a blind person to step off a train and get from the station’s platform to a coffees shop on the first floor all by themselves? Thanks to Wayfindr, indoor navigation is set to take a turn for the better, especially for visually impaired people.
Starting out as a mobile app, Wayfindr is now creating a free and open standard for indoor navigation that everyone from developers to organisations and venues can use to design and provide consistent and user-friendly audio-based navigation in indoor environments.
Joining us on this episode of HealthRedesigned is Umesh Pandya, the Co-founder of Wayfindr. He discusses how the award-winning tech nonprofit plans to use navigation technology and effective design to empower visually impaired people to navigate the world independently, even indoors.
Listen to this episode on Hanno's website
Connect with Wayfindr: * Wayfindr’s website * Twitter * Facebook
More and more people are going on social networks to share their problems and get emotional support. At best, they get a little encouragement from their peers or strangers on the internet. However, it’s not unusual for posts like these to receive backlash or become ignored, creating even more emotional distress for the person who’s already feeling down.
But what if this was never the case? In this episode of HealthRedesigned, we chat with Robert Morris, Co-founder of Koko, an AI bot that crowdsources words of encouragement for anyone going through an emotionally difficult time. Through Koko, people can get advice and support anonymously to help them cope with their feelings and improve their mental wellbeing.
Listen to this episode on Hanno's website
Connect with Koko on:
- Koko’s website
Virtual reality isn’t just for video games anymore, it’s being used to cure phobias too. One of the best ways to help people get over their fear of something is to expose them to it. Technologies like virtual reality have made it possible for therapists to safely immerse their patients in fear or anxiety-inducing scenarios, but this modern approach to treating mental health disorders hasn’t always been affordable and accessible for most.
Based in San Francisco, Limbix designs virtual reality software that therapists can use to simulate a variety of public environments for patients, coach them through these experiences and teach them various coping techniques.
In this episode of HealthRedesigned, we chat with Tony Hsieh, Co-founder and Product Lead at Limbix who discusses how virtual reality can be a powerful tool for treating mental health disorders.
Listen to this episode on Hanno's website
Connect with Limbix on: * Limbix’s website * Twitter * Facebook
The rapid progression of healthcare means that it’s more important than ever for hospitals to understand how they should evolve But even with abundant access to their own data, it’s often not the biggest priority for hospitals to engage in strategic planning, which could make all the difference in helping them to maximise growth and better serve the needs of their patient population.
Thanks to Stratasan’s software and services, it’s now easier for hospitals and healthcare systems to turn their data into intelligence and make data-based decisions that’ll help them grow strategically and stay competitive while keeping costs low.
In this episode of HealthRedesigned, we chat with Jason Moore, Co-founder and CEO of Stratasan. Based in Nashville, Stratasan assists over 700 hospitals across 40 states in the US with their strategic planning, management and growth through a combination of customised software and hands-on consulting.
Listen to this episode on Hanno's website
Connect with Stratasan: * Stratasan’s website * Twitter * Facebook
In designing and building better cities, shouldn’t we involve the most important stakeholder—the people who live in them? Manchester is becoming a city that values the opinions of its citizens to co-design a smarter and better-connected city. From businesses and jobs to better healthcare and transport, the CityVerve project in Manchester aims to engage and empower citizens and eventually create a blueprint for smart cities worldwide.
As one of the main drivers of CityVerve, FutureEverything leads three areas of the project: human-centred design, citizen engagement, and culture and public realm. Starting out as an internationally acclaimed festival that began in Manchester in 1995, FutureEverything has become so much more than a conference about technology over the past 22 years—it's a cultural facilitator at the intersection of art, design, science and digital.
In this episode of HealthRedesigned, we speak to Mahnaz Yusaf, a Service Designer and Feimatta Conteh, a Program Manager from FutureEverything about the health innovation projects that they’ve been driving recently through the CityVerve project.
Listen to this episode on Hanno's website
Connect with FutureEverything: * FutureEverything's website * Twitter * Facebook * Instagram
With a touch of a button, a blind person can get a little help with everyday tasks. When Hans Jorgen Wiberg was just 25 and about to take over his parent’s farm, he started losing his sight. He went from having a normal 180-degree vision to a vision of five degrees. This means that he can just about read the text on his mobile phone, but uses a cane when walking around.
Knowing a treatment has yet to exist for his condition, he was confident that technology could somehow help the blind and visually impaired carry out simple tasks, making their lives a little bit easier.
He created Be My Eyes, a free mobile app that connects blind and visually impaired people with sighted volunteers, helping them solve all kinds of daily challenges. In this episode of HealthRedesigned, we chat with Hans, the founder of Be My Eyes who discusses how the app is empowering the blind and visually impaired to lead more independent lives while spurring a micro-volunteering movement that involves over 800,000 volunteers worldwide.
Listen to this episode on Hanno's website
Connect with Be My Eyes * Be My Eyes website * Twitter * Facebook
We may be living longer, but that doesn’t mean we’re ageing well. Thanks to medical advancements, people now have longer life expectancies, albeit living with more medical conditions. In the UK, the average 75-year old has seven conditions. As the ageing population grows, there is an increasing need for senior adults to be able to live at home without resorting to social care.
Besides easing financial pressure for government healthcare systems like the UK’s National Healthcare System (NHS), the majority of elderly people do not want to live in formal care—90% of older people surveyed by the NHS prefer to stay at home.
Supporting the older population in ageing at home also means designing user-friendly products that improve their quality of life and help them stay independent and safe. But how do we make that happen?
In this episode of HeathRedesigned, we chat with Eric Kihlstrom, the UK ambassador of Aging2.0, a global volunteer network that supports innovators and entrepreneurs who are taking on the challenges of ageing. He's also a Co-founder of KareInn, a startup that wants to improve quality of life for our parents generation. KareInn builds software to help carers be more productive and use data to deliver more personalised care.
Listen to this episode on Hanno's website
Links mentioned in this episode:
- KareInn
- WCS
- WorkSure
- GDPR
- Care.data
- Epic
- P&G TREO video
- Agetech London Hub meetup
Connect with Aging2.0:
- Aging2.0’s website
We can track everything from the number of steps we’ve walked to our heart rate, so why not a woman’s fertility? With more and more women wanting to interpret their menstrual cycles from understanding their bodies to becoming pregnant, there’s a need for comprehensive fertility care solutions that aren’t just convenient, but also reliable.
Based in Zurich and San Francisco, Ava Women has designed a bracelet, app and self-learning algorithm that tracks women's menstrual cycles, giving them accurate and reliable data about their fertility and how their cycle fits into the bigger picture of their reproductive health.
On this episode of HealthRedesigned, we chat with Allison Sarno, Head of Design and User Experience at Ava Women. She shares how Ava Women is using technology to revamp women’s health and helping women understand their bodies better, whether they’re tracking their cycles or determining the right moment to conceive.
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Ava Women
What if you could take a blood test without leaving your home?
Getting regular checkups and tests at the local GP may seem like a beneficial idea, but the reality is that people in the UK rarely book appointments to see a doctor unless they’re feeling unwell.
In a bid to get more people to take charge of their health, London-based startup Thriva, is giving people easier access to preventative healthcare through a finger-prick blood test kit that can conveniently be taken at home before being posted to a lab to be analysed.
In this episode of HealthRedesigned, we chat with Hamish Grierson, CEO and Co-founder at Thriva who tells us why he and his co-founders started the health service that’s empowering consumers to take proactive steps towards better health and what’s in-store for Thriva’s future.
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Thriva
Determining which supplements to take can oftentimes become a guessing game.
With hundreds of thousands of different sources out there on the different vitamins and supplements that can boost health and prevent diseases, how does one decide which of that information is actually relevant to them or which experts to trust?
This is where New York startup, Care/of, leaps in to get to know their users through an A.I.-powered quiz before providing vitamin recommendations that are tailored to a person’s specific needs, health goals and lifestyle choices, which can then be customised into a monthly vitamin subscription.
In this episode of HealthRedesigned, we chat with Akash Shah, co-founder and Head of Product at Care/of who tells us how this vitamin subscription company for the modern age is guiding consumers to understand which supplements are right for them and how they plan to complement their products with tools that build positive habits.
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Care/of
A woman’s body goes through various sensations throughout pregnancy, which is their body’s way of communicating the progression of their pregnancy. However, understanding most of these signs, like contractions, can be a puzzling experience for women, often sending them into a state of worry and wondering if they should go to the hospital—which can be timely and costly if it turns out to be a false alarm.
Bloomlife is the first pregnancy wearable that automatically tracks contractions and provides real-time data and patterns to help pregnant women and their partners interpret contractions better, reducing anxiety and taking the guesswork out of going into labour.
On this episode of HealthRedesigned, we meet Molly Dickens, the Head of Content and Community at Bloomlife. She shares how Bloomlife is helping pregnant women to better connect with their bodies and see how it’s naturally preparing them for birth, redefining the future of prenatal care.
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Bloomlife
For many women, getting access to birth control safely and on time is a vital healthcare need. Even with health insurance, the cost of getting birth control can be a deterrent and can prevent some from accessing the drugs they need to enable them to take control of their health and ultimately, their lives. Dr. Edvard Engesæth and Michael Rurka share how Nurx is providing women in the U.S with more convenient access to birth control and PrEP from online consultations with physicians to delivering the drug right to the user’s doorstep.
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Nurx
Marius Aabel is a co-founder and CTO at No Isolation, a Norwegian startup that’s tackle social isolation and loneliness by designing digital solutions that bring people together. Marius tells us why social isolation is such a pressing problem and how they’re designing solutions to solve an important problem can affect everyone regardless of age.
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Links mentioned in this episode:
- No Isolation
Jean Anne Booth is the CEO and Founder of UnaliWear the makers of the Kanega watch. This watch is a self-contained voice controlled watch that offers emergency assistance, guide me home assistance, medication reminders, and fall detection. It helps seniors to be more independent, active, and safe.
This idea came about when Jean Anne wanted to create a simple, easy, and convenient way for her mom to stay safe while still maintaining her style. Current Personal Emergency Response Systems on the market were big, bulky, and had limited functionality while still requiring charging. There wasn’t a device that was a good solution for her mom, so she made one.
Episode Highlights:
- Unaliwears mission is to extend independence to seniors with dignity
and independence. * They have now extended the service to vulnerable people overall. * Jean Anne’s mom was turning 80, but she didn’t want to wear an
emergency alert. * Jean Anne wanted a way for her mom to maintain independence and still
be safe. * She decided to build the Kanega watch specifically for her mom and
others in similar circumstances. * She wanted to create something stylish and that didn’t require a
smartphone to use. * Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS) they come in a pendant or
bracelet with a button that only works in your home. * Mobile PERS there may be a cell phone that makes the connection when
pressing the button. These are big and have to be charged. * There are also passive monitoring systems in the home. Such as
sensors on the refrigerator or a pad by the bed. * Passive monitoring systems are too intrusive. * The problem with monitors is if you press the button your kids show
up and take away your car keys. You press it again and they move you
into a care home. * There is a fear of pressing the button and losing independence. * The Kanega watch is like a wearable OnStar or a smart watch for
grandma. * It uses an easy speak interface and no smartphone required. * This is a purpose built smartwatch that delivers independence with
dignity. * This is a medical assisted device. They also have a battery system in
the band and you don’t have to take your watch off to charge. This is
patent pending. * Unali is Cherokee for friend and Kanega is Cherokee for speak. It’s
the friend who speaks to you. * The watches can have different names. * Notifications are permission based and this watch is discrete as a
medical device. * User experience testing has been interesting. They have been
addressing usability concerns on the physical watch and the software. * The look of the watch has improved a lot since the first iteration. * Less than 12% of the population are willing to use a PERS device. * With the Kanega watch the person wearing the watch controls what
information is shared. * The goal of Kanega is to create something for the 88% of people who
are afraid of using a PERS device and losing control. * Because of the Kickstarter campaign they discovered there were other
markets for the device besides seniors. * The watch is in production right now, and they are waiting for FCC
approval then it will be out on the market.
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Resources:
- UnaliWear
- UnaliWear on Kickstarter
- UnaliWear on Facebook
- @UnaliWear on Twitter
Imran Cronk is a co-founder and CEO of Ride Health, a platform that helps patients get rides to and from their medical appointments. There is a transportation barrier. It not only affects patients, it also affects health care providers. Imran has an amazing story of how human compassion and empathy turned into an idea.
He was a volunteer in a hospital and a patient was discharged around midnight with no ride home. This man was also older and had compromised vision, yet he was planning to walk 8 or 9 miles home since he didn’t have any other options. Imran gave the man a ride home. This not only helped a fellow human in need. It also sparked the idea for Ride Health.
Episode Highlights:
- How critical barriers to transportation include having lower incomes, being elderly or disabled, and living in rural areas.
- How there are great resources for emergencies, but non-emergency resources are what Ride Health focuses on.
- One of the problems with the existing NEMT system is that the payer system is very fragmented.
- It also lacks transparency about whether a driver will show up or not. Patients call a call centre 72 hours to a week in advance and
then hope someone shows up before their appointment. * There is a definite need for something more organized and transparent to be in place. * A couple of years ago they began mapping out the goals for Ride Health and began their “listening tour”. * They spent a lot of time wireframing. The vision was to enable a care coordinator could arrange rides on patients behalf and the patients
would receive SMS communication to confirm the ride. * When they were thinking about how to design the communication, they had to think about the lowest common denominator of technological capability. * The coordinator goes into their web-based platform, this is a HIPAA compliant platform and adds basic patient information. * After the appointment is set up the patient receives a call or SMS message 24-hours in advance. * They then have the option to confirm or cancel the ride. They also get a reminder one hour before the arrival time. * This patient-centred system also allows the patient to designate when they are ready to come home. * They work with a variety of transportation services. * They had to think really hard about the user experience to make it as simple as possible but also flexible to diverse needs. * They also have an instant ride option and have taken care not to clutter the user interface with too much stuff. * The vision is to be the global infrastructure for access to care, whether it’s through transportation or other types of barriers that
need to be addressed. * In user surveys of folks scheduling rides, 100% of them have expressed that they want to continue using Ride Health. * The importance of spending time with people who will actually be using your product.
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Resources:
- Ride Health
- Non-Emergency Medical Transportation
Adam Diehl is the lead product designer at Headspace which is an app that teaches guided meditation and helps people live more mindfully. The mission of Headspace sounds simple, but it is far from it. It is to improve the health and happiness of the world.
Headspace knows that this is an ambitious and broad goal, but that is intentional because it starts with changing behaviour and perspective. As people become aware of how they feel physically, emotionally, and mentally, they become more aware of the world around them and learn to empathize, and that makes the world a better place.
Episode Highlights:
- The lofty goal of Headspace to create a domino effect of change
through awareness. * How Andy Puddicombe, Headspace co-founder, moved to Tibet and became
a monk for 10 years. He realized he could apply what he learned to a
modern day lifestyle. * The other co-founder, Rich Pearson, met Andy and they decided to
create the Headspace app and reach people digitally. * They have 18 million downloads. Things have come a long way. * The modern straightforward approach to Headspace. * Use of character and animation was something they wanted to associate
the brand with from the start, although they have evolved and went through a redesign. * The new layout came down to the practice. Andy didn’t want to
restrict the users. * They increased their design research and changed the language of the
free modules and it is not called Take 10 anymore. * How a couple of monasteries may be using the app for novice monks. * They plan on continuing to optimize the meditation experience and
recommendations. They also would like to create a great community. * Being more aware and engaging with the world around you, and putting
the phone down while using a meditation app. * The dream of interacting screen free. * How Headspace attracts people who care about personal growth and how
to communicate and respond to others. * How they have guided meditations to break up the workday. It is also
a great way to connect with colleagues. * Meditation takes awhile, so try it and stick with it for awhile.
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Resources:
- Headspace
- @Headspace on Twitter
- Headspace on Facebook
- Headspace on Instagram
- Adam Diehl Website
- Adam Diehl on Instagram
- Adam Diehl on LinkedIn
- @adamdiehl_ on Twitter
- Andy Puddicombe
- Rich Pearson
- Headspace Blog
- Headspace Podcast
Louis Pinot is the Co-Founder and Head of Product at Implicity a platform that allows healthcare professionals to remotely monitor medical devices for patients who have chronic diseases. It uses artificial intelligence to analyze data from high-risk patients with devices like pacemakers. It is their goal to improve the lives of people with chronic diseases.
Louis explains that big data is providing a huge opportunity to provide people with better health care. The two main sources are genomics and connected medical devices, so they are trying to build better tools for physicians. We talk about the existing market for heart implant devices, the benefits of monitoring these devices, and how this new cloud-based platform can improve patient care.
Episode Highlights:
- Their initial product is for devices implanted in patients hearts.
- This is one of the most mature verticals.
- They also have a lot of clinical proof that monitoring these devices
improves patient care. * The original idea was to use AI as a service for medical devices, but
then they circled back and decided to focus on the heart implant device market. * How physicians are sceptical of new platforms because of past
software experience. * Building trusts with physicians and not showing the product too soon. * How hospitals rely on pen and paper because they don’t fail or crash. * People have been reacting very positively to the product. The initial
feedback has been useful. * The importance of having at least one well-connected physician on
board with the project. * Implicity is a full-service company and they will handle the
transition to the new platform. * How easy things to do can provide a lot of value. The importance of
paying attention to health care professional suggestions. * The value of empowering patients with tools to communicate with
physicians. * Remote monitoring is a challenge, and they plan to expand to other
verticals. The common link is the patient. * They are focusing on cardiovascular diseases in general.
Hypertension could be a huge market. * Their strategy is to approach the market through the doctors as
opposed to directly to the patient. * How proper design thinking has a lot of value in healthcare and
there's less room for errors.
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Resources:
- Implicity
- Louis@Implicity.fr
Today’s guest is Ali Namdari. He is the co-founder and product designer at MedPics. This is an app that allows healthcare professionals to share clinical cases and get advice from their peers. It is being used by over 30,000 users including doctors, nurses, medical assistants, and students in France.
MedPics was inspired by a doctor that Ali knew who worked in an emergency room. She would take pictures of interesting cases and share them with her peers. This resulted in a long and unruly email feed. They also experimented with creating a LinkedIn format for chat and photo sharing. Ali and his co-founder eventually created a simple Instagram-like version that evolved into MedPics.
Episode Highlights:
- It took about 5 or 6 months after Ali and his co-founder partnered with a student to get the first iteration of their app created.
- They now have a full-fledged branded app.
- Design challenges they have faced included working and testing remotely.
- Designing for medical users was also a design challenge.
- Ali also used mock-up pictures of salamis and food in place of body parts.
- They have received great feedback and the impact on medical students has been huge.
- The app was designed to share interesting cases, but now people are using it as a quiz platform.
- Being opened to design changes and making things fun is important. Sometimes an app will have a natural evolution.
- To access features of the app, users have to have proof of being a medical professional.
- The images also have to be anonymized, so patients can’t be identified.
- There is also a community manager to make sure the app is used in a professional way.
- The app is free, but the business model is to build private groups for hospitals.
- They are currently focusing on France and French-speaking companies.
- The also raised a funding round and they have another one coming up for their educational business model.
- French-speaking doctors are encouraged to contact MedPics for collaboration information.
Resources:
- MedPics Website
- MedPics Twitter
- MedPics Facebook
- MedPics Instagram
- contact@med.pics
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Tech is everywhere which is amazing, but it is starting to get in the way of work and personal relationships. The result is that people are feeling distracted, stressed, and are trying to multitask more and more. People are also having communication issues and trouble disconnecting. In personal relationships, people are not as present with family and friends as they should be. Today, we interview Andrew Dunn who is working on a tool to help people resist digital dependency.
Andrew Dunn is the Co-founder and CEO of Siempo a San Francisco based company with a mission of helping people build better relationships with technology. They are the designers of the “phone for humans” which is a new phone that helps people gain control over their time and attention while living more in the present. Too much screen time is something we can all relate to, and this is a wonderful idea.
Episode Highlights:
- How tech can do so many amazing things, but we aren’t always able to achieve our personal goals.
- The way Andrew and Siempo are working to help people resist digital dependency.
- Their first product is an Android app that protects us from using our phones unconsciously.
- How people are taking more digital detoxes and how stories about digital detox are everywhere in the media.
- Young parents are more aware of the digital example that they are setting for their kids.
- How the digital divide is getting smaller and smaller.
- This problem transcends age and geography.
- The pain of digital dependency and finding better ways to live.
- When opening the Siempo app the first thing you do is write down your intention.
- Behaviour Delta and the five behaviours model.
- The biggest challenge is that everyone’s digital life is so different and it is hard to change behaviour.
- They need to create a flexible solution so people can experiment with different strategies that may work for them.
- The market need for a software solution was stronger than the need for a new physical phone hardware solution.
- Siempo has been influenced by Time Well Spent and Designing Mindfulness they try to prevent distraction and promote off-screen time.
- The responsibility that designers have are the opposite of getting people addicted to apps and programs.
- How Andrew is interested in meditation and mindfulness and taking practices around calm and integrating products.
- Holistically working on people’s digital wellness.
- There are a lot of self-aware smartphone addicts that have come to Siempo as clients.
- The email mindful challenge to put your phone down for an hour and focus on something aspirational.
Resources:
- Siempo
- Behaviour Delta
- Time Well Spent
- Designing Mindfulness
- How to Turn Off and Drop Out of The Attention Economy
- The Distracted Mind
- Moment (app)
- Quality Time (app)
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Today, I am talking with Sydney Johnson a Human Factors Research Associate at W21C a health systems research and innovation initiative based at the University of Calgary’s O'Brien Institute for Public Health and Alberta Health Services. W21C researches and tests prototypes for hospital design, new approaches to healthcare, human factors, and other medical technologies to improve the delivery of healthcare.
Sydney also has a background in UX design and service design. W21C is a university-based non-profit with a vision of making care better and defining the future of health. In 2004, the idea of creating the ward of the 21st century was born. The Foothills Campus is inside of Foothills hospital, so it is a real medical ward and they have access to a patient care setting. They also have the W21C research and innovation centre and a simulation lab. Today, Sydney shares how the organization is moving forward with healthcare innovation and design.
Episode Highlights:
- The W21C has a 40 person interdisciplinary team. This allows them to look at research from several perspectives.
- They also have physicians and academics who want to find solutions to health challenges.
- They also help AHS Alberta Health Services requests and public priority challenges.
- They also partner with private industries to test viability and determine if there is a need.
- How they are focused on digital health and ageing in place. They want to keep people out of the care systems longer.
- They want to enable senior citizens to age better.
- There is also a big focus on better managing digital health and supporting information flow.
- One of the new technologies they are working on is augmented reality for medical procedures.
- How it’s interesting to see the future of medical technology.
- Sydney works on the human factors team which understands how people interact with the world around them.
- The design process includes running projects through an ethical review board.
- The research has to be very sound because it is in healthcare.
- Sydney discovered that the healthcare space was very interesting and wanted to be a part of it.
- One of the projects they worked on was a visual design for a hand sanitizer pump. It was scalable and did encourage hand hygiene.
- One of the things they tried was flat ceiling tiles to eliminate areas where germs can gather.
- Another human factor project was toilet design for handicapped people.
- The importance of the research they do and the resistance to change and how it is important to convince people and communicate the value of the project.
- The importance of involving users in projects.
- How they are open to requests for information.
Resources:
- W21C
- ScopeAR
- W21C facebook
- W21C Twitter
- W21C Instagram
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Today’s guest is Scott Sundvor the co-founder and CPO of Nima a portable gluten sensor that tests your food and detects whether it contains gluten. Scott and his co-founder both have food issues and sensitivities. The two of them bonded over the idea of giving people more information about what is in their food. They started focusing on gluten, but they have a long-term goal of helping people connect the dots between their food and health.
In the US, there are about 3 million people with celiac disease along with about 20 million with gluten intolerance. Plus, about a third of the population is trying to avoid gluten. The awareness of gluten and issues revolving around it are increasing. Incidences of allergies and intolerances are also increasing. Scott shares how they started their business and product and a lot of great information that revolves around food, diet, allergies, sensitivities, and health.
Episode Highlights:
- How Scott and Shireen bonded over the thought of connecting people to food and health.
- How being exposed to things early in life can help. The importance of the microbiome and autoimmune diseases.
- How food allergies usually manifest in childhood, but it can happen later in life.
- The difficulty of knowing whether there is gluten in your food without a sensor like Nima.
- Often times there are tiny amounts of pervasive gluten and cross contamination.
- How food intolerances and allergies can actually affect your social life.
- The problems of having to know where the bathroom is and constant fear of getting sick and playing Russian Roulette with our diet.
- How the Nima device gives you an instant test result plus sends the results to the app.
- It’s a complex device that is simple for the user.
- 95% of the time restaurants are accommodating and try and create gluten-free items.
- The wonderful reactions the Nima device is getting and how it is helping restaurants change their practices.
- How the device is super accurate and sensitive and it can detect small amounts of gluten.
- The capsules for the device are one-time use capsules.
- How user testing has helped with tweaking features and user interaction.
- How Scott and Shireen spent about a year researching in preparation for creating their product.
- One of the big questions they had was whether people wanted to test one item at a time or the whole meal.
- People wanted to test each thing individually. If there was any gluten on the plate, they didn’t want it.
- The feedback has been positive and it is one of Scott’s favourite part of the job
- How the Nima team is working hard on feature requests and honouring what their customers want.
- How they are certifying gluten-free restaurants and want to show places that have good Nima scores and Nima verified stickers.
- The app is also helping to supply data to crowdsource the information.
- The amazing Nima team and the difficulties of running a startup.
- Including the entire team on customer calls and feedback reviews.
Resources:
- Nima
- Nima Facebook
- Nima Twitter
- Nima Instagram
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website
Welcome to the Health Redesigned podcast by Hanno. We invite changemakers in health and wellness to share their stories about how they're using design and technology to build life-changing digital products. My name is Laila and my guest today is Pieter Doevendans. He is the co-founder of Ava, a startup based in San Francisco with a mission to empower deaf and hard of hearing people with total accessibility.
Ava has created an app that transcribes what people say into text messages, making it easier for deaf and hard of hearing people understand conversations and communicate with others. In this episode, Pieter shares his co-founders story of growing up in a deaf family, the difference between deaf and hard of hearing people, some of the early attempts and challenges of designing their app, and much more.
Episode Highlights:
- Pieter shares the mission of Ava and how there was a gap in solving the communication issues of group conversations.
- The story of Thibault and his deaf family, and how he is culturally deaf, meaning that he grew up in a sign language environment.
- Uppercase and lowercase deaf communities.
- Only two to three percent of deaf people know sign language and how there are many levels of hearing loss.
- How Ava is fully automated and focuses on the multispeaker situation which is fairly complicated and hasn’t been done before.
- How the Ava app is very similar to other messenger apps with colour codes to say who is speaking and saying what and can be read in real
time. * Pieter shares how they originally tried translating sign language into voice, but when they learned the challenge was understanding,
they shifted their focus to Ava. * Pieter shares early challenges and attempts to get the app right. * It’s also possible to type into Ava for speech impaired people. * In the beginning stages, they interviewed about 300 people and the great thing about social enterprise is that people are willing to
help. * There is a page on the Ava website about how the app has changed people’s lives. How Ava has been a lifesaver for people in emergency
situations. * How helping people is motivating for Pieter. * There is a new improved version of Ava being released and it will enable anyone to use Ava even without the app. * To support the Ava community refer friends and think about what you can do to make environments more accessible.
Resources:
- Ava
- Ava on Twitter @AvaScribe
- Ava on Facebook
- Ava on Instagram @AvaScribe
Listen to this HealthRedesigned podcast episode on Hanno's website