Design for the disruption that likely going to happen.

I was at a digital health event last night and one of the companies presented the new process that would be enabled by their technology. It was better but only modestly better. 

What it didn’t consider is an engaged healthcare consumer, patient or member. People everywhere in the world are trying to self diagnosis themselves with online information and studies. That trend is going to continue with the number of free apps, wearables and tests that are engaging people in their own health.

As an industry, we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. We need to anticipate what people are likely going to do and design for it.

Disruptive tech companies study how people use their technology and hook them by making their solution even easier to use. We need to take that mindset into process design and design for how people actually want to use the healthcare system.

Dated gatekeeper models are not going to work in the era of an engaged consumer, patient and member. People will circumvent processes that are long and difficult. It’s the work around that we all do in corporate America. So why would we expect anything different in a healthcare service?