Health Experience Design 2021

Through global reports and personal experiences, we know healthcare costs in the United States have soared in recent years: total US healthcare spending is now 16.9% GDP, more than any other OECD country (OECD, 2019). These financial implications burden patients, clinicians, and the system itself. The context of American healthcare is defined by factors including private insurance, changing healthcare models (i.e. fee-for-service to value-based care), Medicare, and regulatory entities. These factors converge to determine the bottom line of a hospital stay. While we may understand American healthcare, this is only one example of how healthcare systems operate. What about the rest of the world? This talk explores global healthcare systems — how they are maintained economically, how they react to different situations, and how they impact individual patients. Utilizing case studies from UX research conducted at 3M, the talk starts at a macro level outlining the context of healthcare systems in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Saudi Arabia. The context of regulations, authorities, and structure all change the business case for healthcare nationally and at individual hospitals. Finally, the talk reviews different scenarios to illustrate what happens when the system copes with stress and how this changes the outcome for the patient.