The Human Experience: How Patients Inspire Innovation and Why Medtech Should Listen

Discussions centered on patient-centered, outward-looking technology with an emphasis on data and patient engagement. The medtech CEO, physician, and hospital executive all consider innovation differently, but they all have the patient as the muse. What Patient-Inspired Innovation Means Todd Dunn, innovation director for Intermountain Healthcare, said during a conference panel that his organization created a new initiative to put empathy at the forefront of innovation. He said Proctor & Gamble's "immersion research," where executives spend time in people's homes to understand what matters to them, inspired him to approach innovation differently. "I realized we were doing the wrong thing in healthcare," he said. "We weren't focusing in the context of where people live, work, learn, pray, and play." To change that, he helped create and now leads Design for People, which uses empathy as a tool to put people, not systems, at the center of design. Its team currently uses direct observation to assess endoscopy, allergy-immunology, and integrated care management programs. Eric Stone, CEO and cofounder of Velano Vascular, which develops needle-free blood draw devices, agreed, noting that our healthcare system has historically treated problems rather than patients. "Many times the structure and process that leads to quality and safety dampens the reality of what the patient feels and experiences," he said. "It's the approach to treating the whole person and not just the disease th...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Medical Device Business Source Type: news