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Design Thinking

‘Patient-Centred’ Experience And Digital Transformation Technologies

December 5, 2019 Design

Summary

The message coming from every keynote, panel discussion, article or research study is clear that digital transformation is not just imperative for all enterprises but it will permanently alter consumer interactions with their products and services.1 Digital transformation is the application of digital technologies such as mobile data analytics and smart embedded devices to reinvent customer relations and business processes. Worldwide spending on digital transformation related technologies and services is expected to approach $2 trillion by 2022, according to IDC. 2 Hence, the healthcare industry as well, has to transform its processes to respond to the new realities of digital technologies in an increasingly competitive world by continuing to invest in digital technology. But at the same time, there’s a need to reshape patient-care operations in this dynamic environment. Amid the intricacies of digital sophistication, the clamour to put customer services and customer expectations at the centre of all digital and service interactions has grown stronger than ever before. Adopting a customer-centric mindset in unifying products and services through human-insights, and not through digital transformation, is an important piece in the customer experience endeavour.

In the wake of digital transformation, businesses are overlooking consumer behaviour favouring instant gratification through technology hoping customer loyalty and dollars will follow, but they’re missing a fundamental point. Instead of depending upon digital transformation as a means for delivering an exceptional experience they should be focussing on customer needs through gathering & relating human-insights to actual needs. It is therefore important for businesses to build a customer experience strategy that looks at finding insights instead of merely depending upon digital transformation for analytics — the better experience customers have, the more repeat and positive reviews they’ll receive while simultaneously reducing customer complaints and frustrations. 3

In this context, what should be the strategy for the healthcare industry to drive digital transformation from a ‘user-first’ standpoint? What measures must healthcare businesses need to adopt for catering to patient needs & expectations? What parts of their business strategy must need to change for encouraging a positive change & enhancing the quality of healthcare services with technology? Most importantly, could technology alone be adequate in solving human-centred problems? These and many more such conclusions around an overall healthcare optimization planning could be explored by applying relevant phases of the ‘patient-centred design model’.

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Inclusive Society

The Idea of An Human-Centered Capitalism

November 17, 2019 Design Happenings

There’s plenty to appreciate about human-centeredness in design, undoubtedly, if there’s ever an era in our history to look into the depths of human needs to innovate it has come now. We have been doing it all with technology but now it requires us to move away from tech talk and focus on social justice for an inclusive society with ‘human-centered capitalism’.

“We need to move to the next stage of capitalism, a human-centered capitalism, where the market serves us instead of the other way around.”

The “Freedom Dividend”: Inside Andrew Yang’s plan to give every American $1,000

Quoting the Democratic 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate, entrepreneur and non-profit founder Andrew Yang, from an event in New Hampshire. His policy proposal called “Freedom Dividend”, a universal basic income (UBI) plan that aims to provide $1000 per month / $12000 per annum for every American adult above the age of 18. Although the concept of universal basic income isn’t innovative in itself but the idea of designing an economy centred around human-needs does produce an intriguing justification. The task of designing an economy centred solely around human needs & desires, employment challenges, cultural mindsets and based on considerations such as the demographics of the population and their skills would be compelling. Depending upon how it matches up to the potential of some populist dimensions ‘human-centered capitalism’ could be a permanent feature for governments to steer the economy in various directions. And I’m seriously drawn towards making the idea of social justice for an inclusive society through ‘human-centered design’ possible.

“The freedom dividend stacks on top of Social Security, it stacks on top of anything healthcare related, such as Medicare. It stacks on top of housing assistance,” Yang replied. “The things it does not stack on top of are essentially cash and cash like benefits. So this is SNAP, heating oil, other programs that are essentially trying to put cash in your hands to manage an expense.”

The “Freedom Dividend”: Inside Andrew Yang’s plan to give every American $1,000

It means, regardless of whether individuals who are above the age of 18 are employed/unemployed, the government promises to pay $1000 to enable them to pay their bills, which I believe if and when it’s implemented, would be a safety net to safeguard people’s future. It’s a brilliant strategy to put money into people’s hands and set free the future generations from the clutches of rising debt, unemployment, and above all, prevent them from abject poverty and finally, homelessness.

The Crux of Human-Centered Capitalism

Apart from the benefits that I have already outlined so far, the implementation of the UBI plan would instinctively kickstart economic growth and rise in employment. As stated in the brief on “Freedom Dividend” which would “[…]permanently grow the economy by 12.56 to 13.10 percent—or about $2.5 trillion by 2025—and it would increase the labour force by 4.5 to 4.7 million people.” However, it doesn’t mention an important aspect of the UBI which is, there might be a significant drop in the rate of chronic diseases and mental disorders owing to the apparent change in the overall lifestyle choices of the people, that would also stop taxing the economy. There’s no doubt that rolling out the UBI would definitely prove to be a boon for the economically weaker section of the society on a global scale without getting caught in the hype of ‘taxing the rich and gifting the poor’.

What’s An Inclusive Society?

In passing, I loved the definition of an ‘Inclusive Society’ from the draft of a UN’s document on the subject, and I’m going to leave it right here for readers to think about and envision what kind of world they’d like to live in? Most prominently, I’m excited about the possibilities and looking forward to the time when an opportunity would arise to collaboratively design an inclusive society using the principles of human-centered design as a pivoting tool.

An inclusive society is a society that over-rides differences of race, gender, class, generation, and geography, and ensures inclusion, equality of opportunity as well as capability of all members of the society to determine an agreed set of social institutions that govern social interaction. (Expert Group Meeting on Promoting Social Integration, Helsinki, July 2008)

Creating an Inclusive Society: Practical Strategies to Promote Social Integration; DESA 2009
Photo by Papaioannou Kostas on Unsplash

Wait Times Management For The Digital Age

December 12, 2018 Design Technology

I am involved in an engaging organizational innovation exercise with a team comprising business consultants and senior leadership of one of the top healthcare companies in Canada that own and operate over a 1000 pharmacy locations across the country. Apart from several themes one of the aims of this 3-month long exercise is to understand the barriers in the delivery of timely services to patients and finding an innovative solution to wait-times. So, what exactly is a ‘wait-time’ in the context of a pharmacy? In simple terms, it is typically that period in a given service parameter in which a pharmacy customer (patient or caregiver) has to wait before he/she is dispensed the prescribed medication and depending upon the traffic of a specific pharmacy location that period could sometimes run into hours. The current demographic of pharmacy patients consists largely of ‘baby boomers’ who were born in the 40s-60s but that won’t be the case forever because more millennials, the cohort of people generally born in the 80s-90s, have begun to emerge as an influential group not just for healthcare but the retail industry at large. This segment is most prominent for its early adoption of digital apps and automation but the ‘boomers’ aren’t laggards either with adopting a digital lifestyle. As we gather around in focusing on and exploring various options I wanted to present some of my views on tackling wait times (WT) in the incumbent age of digitization. Additionally, I also wanted to share some of my observation and learning on wait times with other brands, in particular, IKEA.

Basics of Wait Times

wait times in pharmacy

I would continue with my comprehension of WTs in the context of pharmacies. So, to begin with, what is a wait time and why is it important? In technical terms, a ‘wait-time’ is a crucial factor from the perspective of implementing the prioritization order in a customer queue to ensure that one person’s isolated need/demand does not gain precedence over the others waiting in the line. If managed efficiently on a consistent basis, WTs also play a major role in managing the working time of the pharmacy staff and also helps bring productivity and efficiency into the work culture, such as preparing the medication while the patient waits in anticipation. From a pharmacy standpoint, despite all the clear advantages, there are prevailing challenges which prevents pharmacists from meeting their stated goals. Some of those challenges include lack of team coordination and overlapping (or the lack of) of responsibilities. Then from unskilled staff to complicated digital systems and sometimes even the unavailability of medications at pharmacy locations can not only affect wait-times considerably but could also drastically lower a brand’s value over a period of time. On the other hand, it might be harder to realize but customer wait times are not just limited to pharmacies alone. In fact, in Canada, it’s common for patrons to wait for their turn while availing any form of service just that and experience levels of anxiety and anticipation. Services which have lower levels of expectation generally escape the customers’ ire from bad service experience, whereas others like IKEA have developed a robust & orderly mechanism for addressing wait time challenges using a combination of digitization and environmental factors (store). I have described my experience in IKEA in the post a little later. 

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Strategic Design As A Business Offering

December 7, 2018 Design

Not so long ago, McKinsey published an insightful article on the importance of strategic design in delivering business value called ‘The Business Value of Design’, it was based on a research study conducted on the design practices of 300 big corporations. I was so enthralled by their findings that I published a post in dissecting its virtues.

Recently, they published another piece titled ‘Why design means business’ in yet another attempt at defining the value of design in relation to business. However, I found this article to be a rejoinder to the previous one listing the key themes from that research study. There was one thing though which stood out for me from this post which was the definition of design as a strategic tool.

Organizations have garnered their own individualistic approach for interpreting ‘design’ based on its overall positioning in the hierarchy of the business. The fact remains that that interpretation is widely based on 3 key elements which complement each other, that is, 1) the positioning of design in the current operating model for delivery, 2) the perceived value that is derived from the design activities, and, last but not the least, 3) the integration of design in the organization’s future strategic focus. In creating a justifiable acceptance of design as a standard for building a strategic vision and in proving how companies have delivered value through this approach McKinsey has defined ‘strategic design’ for innovation in an easy to understand terminology in its latest article.

What exactly do we mean when we talk about “design?” Well, much like “strategy” and “analytics,” design is a term that suffers from misuse. Design is not just about making objects pretty. Design is the process of deeply understanding customer/user needs and then creating a product or service—physical, digital, or both—that addresses their unmet needs.

If there’s anything that the twin McKinsey articles have uncovered its some organizations which have woken up to the cadence of strategic design for innovation and delivering striking results. It’s a slow process but it’s not for too long that the corporate world would sit up and take notice and accept this new age phenomenon for innovation. ‘Design’ has the potential to bring that change.

Source: Why design means business | McKinsey & Company

McKinsey Admits, Design Adds Value To Business

October 26, 2018 Design
McKinsey - The Business Value of Design
Download Full Report (PDF – 6MB)

McKinsey published an insightful report correlating the value of design in business, with increased revenues and shareholder returns. As I began reading I thought I would take some notes and share it here as a reminder to me, as well as businesses, that design wouldn’t work as a temporary measure. It has to be integrated holistically within the long-term growth opportunities of the company, which includes, nurturing top talent, investing in design infrastructure, senior management & C-suite engagement, and a culture of collaboration amongst cross-functional teams. In that, I can only cite Apple’s example of a continual focus on developing products which combine the theories of service design, hardware, and software, in producing assets of greater value to its customers.

The Business Value of Design – McKinsey Design Report

  • This is the most extensive and rigorous research undertaken by McKinsey to study actions that leaders could make in unlocking the business value using design.
  • Companies like Amazon have demonstrated the obvious commercial benefits of designing great products and services, increasingly blurring the lines between hardware, software, and services. Today, companies need stronger design capabilities than ever before.
  • So how do companies deliver exceptional designs and what the worth of design? McKinsey tracked the design practices of 300 publicly listed companies over a five-year period in multiple countries and industries, and interviewed senior design leaders.
  • The companies were rated using the ‘McKinsey Design Index’ (MDI) demonstrating the insights correlating to their design capabilities and revenues.
  • A high MDI score correlated to superior business performance. An increase in revenues and total returns to shareholders for the top-quartile MDI scorers.
  • The results suggest “that good design matters whether your company focuses on physical goods, digital products, services, or some combination of these.”
  • There are more opportunities for pursuing user-centric, analytically informed design today with customers & companies feeding opinions in real time with each other. Social media, for instance, offers faster access to real customers and also through smart devices allowing companies to place the user at the centre of business decisions.

Over 40 percent of the companies surveyed still aren’t talking to their end users during development. Just over 50 percent admitted that they have no objective way to assess or set targets for the output of their design teams. With no clear way to link design to business health, senior leader are often reluctant to divert scarce resources to design functions.

  • McKinsey has categorised ’The Value of Design’ into 4 themes – Analytical leadership, Cross-functional talent, Continuous iteration and User experience. The top-quartile companies in the field of design and who are leading financial performers excelled in all four areas.
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