Mayo Clinic symposium 2009 28/09/2009

The American Mayo Clinic ran a symposium a few weeks ago on Innovations in Healthcare Experience and Delivery. Among the presentations is one by Amy Tenderich, who set up an information resources and networking site for people with diabetes and who speaks about redefining roles in diabetes care and the role of user networks.

Amy presents some interesting data on how people with diabetes use such sites. She describes how they contribute to the healthcare system and how they can transform the user experience. In particular she notes how healthcare design can be influenced by social media and how ‘wired patients’ are changing the balance of power in favour of patients.

Clearly the American context of a healthcare ‘industry’ has much bearing on her presentation. But she includes an example of a design competition for a smartphone as a ‘life device’ for people with diabetes, and a website that provides personalised health information and advice.

There are three presentations we found very relevant: Tim Brown, chief executive of IDEO, on design thinking in healthcare; Karl Ronn of Procter & Gamble on what healthcare can learn from developing consumer products; and Christi Dining Zuber of Kaiser Permanente on design solutions in healthcare.