Experience Framework Lens: Innovation & Technology

By Rosie Bartel

The Why: As a focus on experience expands, it requires new ways of thinking and doing and the technologies and tools to ensure efficiencies, expand capacities and extend boundaries of care. 

P/F Impact: When an organization engages innovative and truly meaningful technology, patients and families experience more efficient care with less stress and are empowered to maintain more control in the management of their care.  

Reflection Questions for Commentary: 

This lens is important to patients and families using healthcare organizations because innovation and technology can be a tool for our healthcare workers and for patients to better communicate and collaborate with each other. As a patient, who manages six different healthcare systems due to her complex medical issues, technology plays a significant role in her healthcare story. By automating routine tasks, innovation using technology enables doctors to focus on more complex patient interactions. This shift can enhance the overall patient experience and care quality. From patient portals to AI, technology supports doctors by allowing them to focus on patient interaction and complex cases. While technology has limitations its potential to reduce diagnostic errors and improve patient outcomes is significant. 

Patients and families want to see and experience this lens by being involved in the co-design of the technology and participate in the development Innovative ways to use technology. A notable example is the patient advisory group that works with Epic’s developers and designers to design and redesign their patient portal known by many as My Chart. It was a patient, who convinced Epic that they needed patients and families at the table. Now they have two patient advisory groups because there was a waiting list for developers and designers to present their ideas to the group before they even begin designing a new product for patients.  

Open Notes was another co-design project that has brought providers and patients together to use technology to better communicate with each other long before the Cares Act made it law. Open Notes has continued to work with patient portal projects such as proxy or shared access of your patient portal and now working to keep the patient and family voice at the table as healthcare begins to use AI from everything from helping providers write their visit summaries to the diagnose of cancer. OpenNotes emphasizes collaborative research, ensuring that both patient and clinician perspectives shape healthcare, leading to well-rounded solutions. 

If this lens does not have a strategic focus of co-design for the organization, the impact on patients and families is public skepticism regarding innovative technology in medicine. Addressing these concerns is crucial for its successful integration into healthcare. While technology, especially AI, can assist in diagnosis and treatment, it lacks the comprehensive understanding and empathy of human doctors, emphasizing the need for human oversight in medical care. As technology evolves, its integration into healthcare may become standard, leading to a more efficient system that balances technology with the human touch essential for patient care. 

Patients and families can be meaningfully engaged to address this lens by:   

• Impact on Patient Engagement: By making health information clearer, patients are likely to take a more active role in their care, potentially improving adherence to treatment plans.  

• Strengthening Clinician-Patient Relationships: Improved communication through clearer documentation can bridge gaps in understanding, fostering trust and collaboration.  

• Addressing Health Literacy Challenges: Technology can acknowledge diverse patient backgrounds and aim to ensure that all patients can understand their care, reducing disparities in health literacy.  

• Future of Healthcare Communication: The partnership of patients, families and clinicians sets a precedent for integrating patient feedback into clinical practices, paving the way for more innovative and effective healthcare solutions.  

Conclusion: 

This lens is important to the experience of patients and families because as technology evolves, its integration into healthcare may become standard, leading to a more efficient system that balances technology with the human touch essential for patient care. Through increased engagement of the patient and family voice will foster active patient participation in care. Stronger communication through clear documentation using technology will enhance clinician-patient relationships and support health literacy by addressing the barriers. Patient and family voice improves the innovation and technology lens by taking an active role in their healthcare. Innovative technology can help patients and families use their voice and their story to better communicate with their providers. When this lens is developed using true co-design, it can lead patients and families to trust the healthcare organizations.