Innovation is a hot buzzword in healthcare, and digital health investment is booming. But how can the industry create successful tools that are actually useful for patients?

”There’s an opportunity here to both succeed and to fail,” said Molly Woodriff, MPH, senior product manager at NYU Langone Health, during her presentation at HIMSS21: "Design thinking is something that can really increase your chances of success in innovation.”

Design thinking is a human-centered process for problem-solving, said Woodriff. She believes NYU Langone’s use of design thinking has set them apart from other health systems in the digital health space, allowing them to create a range of tools from virtual urgent care to MyWall, a digital hub for inpatients.

The process includes six steps: Empathize and understand your users, define your problem, generate ideas to solve your issue, create a prototype of your best ideas, test your concept to get feedback from users and implement your solution, while continually measuring success.

The goal is to design for the user’s experience, not just design a product. Woodriff used the example of the classic glass Heinz bottle that required a lot of smacking and shaking to get the ketchup out of the bottle. The newer, squeezable bottle with the opening at the bottom worked better for what people actually needed to do: get ketchup on their fries.

One key is to have a variety of stakeholders involved in the process, from engineers and informaticists to clinicians and patients. Though the layout of these six steps seems linear, the actual process may not be, said Woodriff. 

“It really asks people to be open-minded, and think in a way that’s different from typical problem-solving approaches,” she said.

The steps should include considering the user’s experience and needs, as well as perspectives from other stakeholders. For NYU Langone’s MyWall, Woodriff said they spoke to nurses and clearing staff to get their opinions on patients’ rooms. 

They also received feedback from patients on their old system in patient rooms that they hadn’t considered before. Many patients, particularly those with visual impairments, had a difficult time seeing the TVs in their rooms. So their MyWall system included a tablet on an arm by the bed, so patients could easily see an interface up close.

“We all have blind spots, and our patients can help us see more clearly,” Woodriff said.