Healthcare Design - September 2013 - 16

MONITOR

SPECIAL COVERAGE:
CONFERENCE PREVIEW

Edited by Anne DiNardo

The time is now

This year's Healthcare Design Conference keynote speaker
Thomas Goetz says healthcare needs to catch up to other industries in
transforming its consumer experience

Whether serving in his previous role of executive editor at
Wired magazine, as a book author, or in his current position
as entrepreneur-in-residence at the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, Thomas Goetz has maintained a keen focus
on the world of healthcare. In November, Goetz will take
the stage to kick off the 11th annual Healthcare Design
Conference. Here, he talks about healthcare's past, present,
and future, and why the industry's new consumer-driven
marketplace changes everything.
Healthcare Design: One question that might be on
the minds of a room full of healthcare designers in
November is: "Why should we listen to you?" What's
your response?
Thomas Goetz: I've been thinking about the individual
experience with healthcare for a decade and how we can
engage ordinary people using the tools and resources that
have transformed consumer experiences in every other
industry-retail, consumer electronics, architecture. A lot
of basic ideas have not made their way into healthcare. We
have to start applying the best practices that have been
tested and integrated into other industries and bring those to
healthcare.
Do you feel the industry is ready to accept that?
The healthcare industry has some unique obstacles that
make it more complicated and that have traditionally served
as enough of an excuse to impede-along with regulations-
any kind of movement. I don't think that washes anymore,
especially when the impetus is coming from consumers as
well as from inside the industry. Care organizations realize
that it's a consumer marketplace. For years, it hasn't been;
but now, this is becoming a consumer-driven industry.

for a richer, more pleasant experience but also to
improve outcomes and comprehension.
Your presentation in November, "Design
From All Sides," will talk about how new
ideas and new technologies can mitigate
failure and optimize innovation in healthThomas Goetz
care. What current innovations excite you
and what still needs to happen?
One really exciting area to watch is the idea of information
design and physical design coming together. It's really
potent in the commercial/technology world. There's a trend
among technology companies to have information-rich
facilities that are using and thinking about signage and
messaging.
One of the problems people have when they go into
a hospital environment is that there's a big disconnect
between people who work in those environments and the
people visiting them. The people who go there every day
see it as their office and they're used to the hallways and
know where to go. Everyone else who enters that environment is terrified, confused, and unhappy on some level. That
physical experience is what's driving a lot of those emotions.
I'm excited to have a conversation about how we can
make that better. How can we bring some clarity to basic
approaches with signage and language that make people
understand where they are and where they're going, to
alleviate and address the fear, insecurity, and anxiety that
they're feeling?

And that changes everything?

What's one thing you want the audience to walk away
with in November?
Every choice is a design choice. Everything that people
decide to do inside a hospital environment-whether it's signage, or lab test reports, or where to put the whiteboard-is

I think it does. Consumers are closer to cost; they're going to
be making more choices based on what they're getting for
their money, for their deductibles, for their co-pays. Hospitals
have basically been marketing to consumers based on location, but there are all sorts of other variables, most of which
fall under the category of design. Consumer experience is
becoming a priority, and that's very exciting, because once
you start integrating design thinking throughout the healthcare experience, you have the opportunity to not just make

a design decision. Therefore,
all of those are an opportunity
to make a better experience for
patients but also for the people
who work there.
For an extended interview
with Thomas Goetz, visit
www.healthcaredesign
magazine.com/goetz.-AD

www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com 09.13

November 16-19, 2013
Orlando, Florida
W W W.HCDCONFER ENCE .COM

http://www.healthcaredesign http://WWW.HCDCONFERENCE.COM http://www.magazine.com/goetz.-AD http://www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com

Healthcare Design - September 2013

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