I’ve been surprised that most of the time when I mention I’m a designer working in healthcare, another designer usually pipes up that they too used to work in health. Their reflections, however, are almost always past tense.
In response to last week’s post, two friends on twitter (who both used to work in healthcare) responded with an interesting exchange I thought was worth sharing.
My original tweet:
@cassiemc (Cassie McDaniel):
*New blog post* The one thing healthcare needs to do today: Hire a freakin’ designer! http://t.co/LbPqAjKd #hcsm #healthcare #design
@ghostpressbed (Derek J. Kinsman):
@cassiemc @ajkandy @myzipcare @ShimCode @JosephCafazzo @pdurginbruce @BentoMiso having worked in healthcare as a designer I completely agree
@typodactyl (Sharlene King):
@ghostpressbed @cassiemc is the problem really hiring designers? in my exp, the problem was listening, respecting, and retaining us.
@ghostpressbed (Derek J. Kinsman):
@typodactyl @cassiemc it’s a bit of both.
@typodactyl (Sharlene King):
@ghostpressbed @cassiemc There’s an amazing amount of talent in healthcare right now, but talent is worthless without voice.
@typodactyl (Sharlene King):
@ghostpressbed @cassiemc And I definitely left healthcare feeling bitter about the lack of respect and ethics.
@ghostpressbed (Derek J. Kinsman):
@typodactyl @cassiemc me too. I left healthcare cause everyone treated me like the guy who knew how to use Photoshop.
@ghostpressbed (Derek J. Kinsman):
@typodactyl @cassiemc but, I still think of ways my current work can help out in healthcare.
@typodactyl (Sharlene King):
@ghostpressbed @cassiemc Yeah. Honestly, I would return to healthcare if I had more power to effect change.
@typodactyl (Sharlene King):
@ghostpressbed @cassiemc But healthcare is particularly slow to culturally evolve. Some changes you have to cycle out the old for the new.
@ghostpressbed (Derek J. Kinsman):
@typodactyl @cassiemc there’s definitely a lot of factors to deal with. But, that’s all part of the challenge.
@typodactyl (Sharlene King):
@ghostpressbed @cassiemc The answer: the three of us start a design-centered healthcare agency? #maybeserious
Is that the answer? Do we have to start from scratch in order to attract (and keep) designers in healthcare?
I think this problem is true of many entrenched industries. The same conversation could be had about most newspapers for example. They can hire great designers, great developers and great writers, but if the organization doesn’t have the capacity to listen and respond to the talent they hired then nothing will change. People get caught in their routines and overwhelmed by the never ending pile of work in front of them. Asking them to step back and try something new or different, to listen to new ideas is very hard. In the rare cases where designers or developers are given a voice, they quickly become jaded by the agonizing process of implementing their ideas.
I agree that a lot of these problems exist in other sectors, but healthcare has something many sectors don’t have:
• Perpetual capital
• Perpetual growth
• An expert market (professional or consumer)
Newspaper industry? They’re lucky if they aren’t one of the many declaring bankruptcy.
I left healthcare, and the agency I left will never die. They may layoff people, but they’ve shown a tenacious amount of growth.
As more designers strike out on their own to improve design in healthcare, like Massive Health, the stodgy agencies that have relied on those three luxuries will hopefully die out. The death of terrible design and strategy in healthcare will be a very slow one.