My Stanford Medicine X blog: day one
Helen Bevan
Strategic adviser, health and care | Innovation | Improvement | Mobilising | Large Scale Change. Views my own
I’m at Stanford Medicine X for four days (15-18 September). I’m aiming to post multiple blogs on my experiences.
This is what the Medicine X website says about the aims of the event:
Medicine X is a catalyst for new ideas about the future of medicine and health care. The initiative explores how emerging technologies will advance the practice of medicine, improve health, and empower patients to be active participants in their own care. The “X” is meant to encourage thinking beyond numbers and trends—it represents the infinite possibilities for current and future information technologies to improve health.
Medicine X describes itself as “the most-discussed academic medical conference in the world”. It has a massive social media presence. Last year, MedX 2015 created connections with 5.5 million unique people and 200 million media impressions.
Here is the programme for MedX 2016. All of the main stage sessions are being livestreamed. You can access live streaming here. You can also follow proceedings on Twitter via social the hashtag #MedX.
The actual conference started today but yesterday I took part in a MedX pre-event: the IDEO Design Challenge. IDEO is one of the world’s biggest and best known innovation and design companies. Its headquarters is across the street from Stanford University’s front door in Palo Alto. A group of about 30 MedX attendees spent the day there immersed in a step-by-step design process to address a patient challenge. It was facilitated by leaders of IDEO. At the start of the day we took part in a tour of the IDEO design facilities and learnt about the many ground-breaking products IDEO has designed over the decades, including the creation of the first computer mouse for the commercial market (Steve Jobs walked in one day and asked IDEO to come up with one).
I was previously trained in human-centred design methods by IDEO in 2005 under the auspices of the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement. The current trip was the first time that I had taken part in a design process led by IDEO since (although I have taken part in many other design activities). Part of the strength of IDEO is having a well-proven core design methodology that hasn’t really changed substantially since my previous encounter 11 years ago.
The power of the day was in its patient / person centredness. This was no surprise given MedX’s extraordinary focus on “everyone included”. I learnt a lot from this. We were allocated into groups. Each group had a facilitator who was an alumnus of a previous MedX IDEO challenge, a staffer from IDEO and a MedX ePatient Scholar. Our ePatient was John who had a double lung transplant in 2015 as a result of pulmonary fibrosis. He set us four challenges starting with “How might we…” and the group had to choose one to tackle.
The challenge we picked was about finding a way to a) continuously monitor oxygen saturation in order to reduce risks for people with pulmonary fibrosis like John and b) make it easier and more socially acceptable for such patients to use supplementary oxygen while out in public. We worked though the IDEO design process, seeking to understand the situation, brainstorming lots of possible options, creating early concepts, building physical prototypes and testing ideas. Each team had to make a smartphone film of its efforts which all the attendees watched together at the end. The films added fun and drama and were a very effective way to tell the stories.
John fed back that, to date, he had spent a lot of time discussing the challenges we addressed in the workshop with people in his own support community. However, they never came up with the kinds of design solutions that our group had identified. The day was a testimony to the power of a structured design process and the magic that happens when you put together diverse groups of people to tackle big challenges.
I also got some additional perspectives such as the concept of “insights from extreme users”: actively seeking out ordinary people with extreme points of view. This provides a broad range of experiences and perspectives that are already well developed that we wouldn’t get if we just picked out a sample of the target group of people. The focus on extremes prompts us to discover new meanings and interpretations for old things.
It was a very good, well organised day with lots of access to design experts, breakthrough insights and a humbling focus on what matters most: the real needs and desires of people with health challenges.
The good news is you don’t have to come to the Silicon Valley to get design training from IDEO. IDEO has joined forces with Acumen, a global learning community for social change-makers. They are providing free online courses in human-centred design. Their (entry level) design kit programme runs regularly as does their prototyping programme. They have also recently made their Facilitator’s Guide to Human-Centred Design available on demand.
Retired Consultant- Fibre Optic Communications - Interconnection systems
5 年The concepts described in this and other posts that follow Medicine X teachings appear sound, however, the culture of Patient engagement in the UK is less active today than it was just a few years ago. Then patient interfacing technology was in its infancy? and the political will to engage with patients was stronger. Recent research in Devon is showing General Practices have far less fully active PPGs (Patient Partition Groups) through lake of support, and from the current major changes to working practices with the introduction of New, largely untried, programs like: No waiting rooms, E-Consult, Online booking, and Text messaging are causing great anxiety and hardship among particular patient Groups, the elderly, those with cognitive or communication difficulties.? A few weeks ago I attended a Focus Governor 2019 Conference in London for invited Governors from all of the NHS England Trusts (Ambulance. Hospitals and Partnerships). One of the Key speakers was a director of NHS England - HealthWatch, who monitor patient comments. To my surprise, it was reported that the Government called them into undertake patient research pending the introduction of changes to the Health Service. The time scale they wanted was to short to carry out extensive research, so a compromise was reached to use past patient files for use to make sweeping changes. This hardly meets the ethos of Medical X. Without adequate support and understanding at Governmental? level patients are more likely to be largely excluded, The worrying trend is that the NHS Trust managements are developing a culture of there own. Just a few weeks ago a Trust Communication Manager said at a meeting; "The patients do not need to know that" a phrase all to common. I admire? your enthusiasm and passion for Medical X, but as a "Lone Wolf" see little change happening. So many initiatives have come from the NHS in recent years and flopped Project A is one that we both participated in, such potential and promise waisted at the expense of Patients Health and Wellbeing.
Clinical Covid Vaccinator, Coventry & Warwickshire Partnership Trust
8 年Inspiring as ever Helen, keep the blogs coming
Hi Helen, really interesting, blog, be interested to know about the behaviour and acceptability of them to the group, were they welcomed, were there views thought to valid, were they marginalised, did it mean that the design input had use, were they pandered to etc how do you evaluate individual views and ideas?
Strategic Leader & Business Consultant | Driving Change and Innovation | Expert in Leadership Coaching & Complex Programme Management
8 年Old methods, new wrapping