HFI's Healthcare UX Podcast Series

HFI's been working with clients in the health/medical/pharma space for many many years now. We've helped clients with everything from EMRs to dialysis machines to consumer pharma sites. And so, it's always been clear to us how big a factor user experience (UX) was in determining the success of any health care (I'll use "health care" generically to refer to anything in the health, medical, pharma or other health-related space) venture. Clearly, the recent health care debate here in the U.S. has drawn a LOT of focus on health care. The focus has largely been on coverage and other financial aspects of the business of health care. While that is certainly important, I would argue that experiences that patients, care givers, and other vested parties have in the context of health care is also critical in determining the ultimate effectiveness of the care. This is the battle we've been fighting for many years.

The current administration's focus on driving efficiency and transparency through increased use of technology will absolutely make UX a more critical determining factor in the ultimate success of any product or service. In conjunction with this systemic push to a more pervasive and intentional use of technology to help improve health care for everyone, HFI is launching a podcast series and associated white paper that will discuss UX issues with industry experts. Throughout the course of the series, we'll explore a number of themes for patients, physicians, and business.

Our first podcast is with Tom Suther, Human Factors Engineer at Mayo Clinic. We talked to Tom about the efforts he and his team are making to bring User Centered Design (UCD) best practices to the redesign of a Point of Care (POC) system at Mayo. In conjunction with the podcast, we've set up a forum here to discuss UCD & EHRs. Tom will be joining us there, so please stop by and join the discussion. You can also find a white paper that accompanies the entire webcast series on our web site. We look forward to hearing from you.