While the digital age has been with us for nearly two decades, our refusal to change and assert digital prominence among many fields has ultimately faultered. It wasn’t until COVID swept the earth our reliance on digital measures became ever so prominent. The current pandemic opened a new digital front that saw doctors, schools, etc. assert themselves online and create new opportunities for the vital sections of society.
Besides teaching, healthcare was one of the most important breakthroughs to the digital age during the COVID pandemic. This shows its true potential to become a new gateway to communicate and present new opportunities in this field. The healthcare market is among the fasted growing sector in the world today such as AI, hardware and service market estimated to reach 34 billion dollars by 2025. This shows a true awakening and a market that can be heavily executed and innovated by UX designers like myself.
What are the solutions to some of the UX challenges in the Healthcare Industry?
- Being a proactive thinker rather than a reactive thinker
- Making Users comfortable with healthcare – avoid legacy-based approaches
- Adapting user’s trust in healthcare that is not delivered directly from human doctors
- Educating users that healthcare is more than tracking fitness through selective design
- Studying users needs to create a value hierarchy in design
- Globally adaptive for everyone and every market as much as possible.
- Simplifying a complex process
- Implement technological advances intuitively
- Hitting the mark on all fronts – Clinical, product & commercial teams
- Understand what benefits patients
What are the top digital healthcare UX trends of 2022/21?
Wearables
This is a subject that I dived into in Kyle’s last module for the Pitch so I know great information and the potential of these devices. The market for wearables is rapidly expanding and the gradual shift in wearable companies from telling the time and taking a phone call to health-related services and technologies. A great example would be Apple’s abrupt shift to selling their device for health and safety with their optical heartbeat sensors and fierce advertising campaign.
Many of these wearables (and even smartphones) are being equipped with technologies such as posture trackers that use a gyroscope and accelerometer to detect the rotation of the user, infrared sensors to detect any irregularities in the bloodstream and even a set of metrics to monitor and document users health. This can be then sent to the doctor upon the consent of the user.
Telehealth + Remote Patient Monitoring
These technologies free up busy medical teams by digitally communicating symptoms which helps the doctor create an interactive care plan. Similar to what we have been doing in class this can be potentially developed into a digital-type forum approach. Possible methods of implementation of an app can be diverse and vast. Although, when looking at potential apps like this everything must connect and make sense to the patient. This can have a large age range.
Digital Therapeutics
DTx is a patient-facing software application that focuses on diagnosing, managing, treating in order to lead a healthier lifestyle. It uses mobiles, software, motion sensors, VR, the internet, etc. to monitor and detect behavioral changes in patients. Essentially it is a form of therapy. This opens a large room for creativity and technological uses. If getting creative, an app that uses VR to monitor your behavior e.g. posture, rotation e.g. via motion sensors to then be sent onto your phone for analytics. Almost like Wii Fit.
Vocal Biomarkers
Diseases that affect organs such as the heart, lungs, brain, muscles, or vocals can have devastating effects on a victim’s communication. Vocal biomarkers are an extremely new and perhaps understood instrument. They can in theory help with diagnoses and remote monitoring through the vocals of a person’s voice. It can also be used for covid screening! This is an interesting and uncovered area to tap into. In my opinion, this could be a feature of an app and not an overall revolve around type scenario.
VR & AR
An extremely popular and immersive way that has been gaining ground due to upcoming game titles, new technology and lower prices. This is extreme and very helpful (at least for me) to alleviate stress, etc. The newest addition is Facebook’s attempt to polarise the market called ‘Meta’ this is a virtual world where you can explore anything and everything, you can even buy tomato soup! A potential app could use VR elements built into the phone e.g. (google cardboard VR) This could be a meetup for patients suffering from loneliness.
AI & Chatbots
A previous disruption a few years ago. It has quickly gained more attention again by the smarter and more enhanced AI that is being produced. As we progressively get further as a society due to the internet and devices taking up our lives. A potential app could be seen with a digital friend. This can be used to create a connection with the client and help them with loneliness, social anxiety (In theory).
Voice User Interfaces
These include a mixture of microphones, AI and speakers… you guessed it – smart speakers! I have just got into the Alexa phase and I am amazed at the responsiveness and intelligence from these products (minus Siri). These can potentially be used in a variety of medical-related applications. One I have in mind is for pensioners and vulnerable people e.g. limited movement. This can help with loneliness, accessibility or alert to accidents upon request of the client.
Mental Health Products
Mental health is a serious problem worldwide nearly 1 in 5 adults live with a mental illness in America and is only rising. The numbers with the addition of it becoming less of a stigma as we enter the modern era. This is no wonder why it’s exploding. The good thing about these kinds of apps is that there is a variety of different apps on the market for different types of mental illnesses.
Non-Emergency Medical Transportation
People who have difficulty walking, are vulnerable and need additional help can access these services to use medical transportation. A potential app I’m thinking of is a ‘uber’ type app that helps locate drivers to the patient and vice versa.
Digital Health tools for Pets
The ever-growing market for pet savvy owners. Most owners of dogs and more specifically cats want to know the movements and location to prevent an incident. A personal example of this was my sister’s cat running away a few months ago. I immediately thought of a GPS tracker. However, when I did research on them they were either unreliable (proximity tracker) or you needed a sim card for one which greatly increases the expenses and hassle. This would be a topic I would look into to almost find a disruption/new technology to look at these challenges.
What have I learned?
These articles have really helped me start the beginning of my research in the healthcare industry. This foundation research is vital as it helps validify and justify work looking at both the practicality, technology and market for each instrument/technology. This has also given me a basis of researching each instrument to find out what they can potentially do for the health scene.
Articles used:
https://www.babylonhealth.com/en-gb/blog/tech/ux-challenges-designing-for-healthcare