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Ryan Chen

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Using Delve’s megatrend framework, we placed sociocultural trends in the context of industry and technological trends to envision consumer needs long-term, and arrived at five future scenarios of healthcare, as well as the strategies healthcare firms need to anticipate and lead these market shifts. In <a href="https://www.delve.com/insights/how-to-design-the-healthcare-products-of-the-future-part-1-everyday-wellness" target="_blank">Part 1</a>, we discussed the paradigm shift in healthcare from a focus on illness to a focus on everyday health and wellness. In Part 2, we explore the paradigm shift from dispassionate care to empathic care, and look at the opportunities and potential pitfalls this shift represents for developers of healthcare products.

Paradigm 2

<h2>Empathic Care: Cultivate Empathy Through Relationships, Services, and Spaces </h2>
As the role of patients evolves into one of healthcare consumer, companies need to deliver an empathic care experience beyond better usability. Companies that provide more meaningful connection at an emotional and aspirational level will attract the next generation of healthcare consumers.

<h2>What’s changed? </h2>
We’ve all experienced a quantitative approach to healing that has treated us like a number and neglected to take our life circumstances or preferences into consideration. Empathic care, however, is about achieving meaningful and functional goals that enable us to live life the way we want to. 
This type of treatment plan takes your social and environmental context into account, and understands that you, your physician, wellness professionals, and caregiver or family are all equal members of the team needed to help you return to your optimal state. 
Numerous studies have shown that empathic care leads to better patient outcomes, compliance, and satisfaction. While this may seem passé—or even contradictory to the rise of digital health—we think empathic products will edge out their competitors.

Empathetic heathcare products

<h2>Examples of the New Paradigm </h2>
Caregivers have been traditionally marginalized in healthcare, even though more than forty million caregivers in the United States have provided unpaid care to an adult or child in the last twelve months. The Cariloop Caregiver Support Platform helps families communicate and store important health, financial, and legal documents while having ondemand access to a dedicated healthcare coaches who guides the families through the many decisions they make over the length of their caregiving journey. The rise in elderly populations and the growing demand for methods that will help aged people live a more productive life will ensure health caregiving remains a dynamic market. 
What if medical machines were designed to take into account a patient’s emotional experience? The GE Senographe Pristina Mammography System is the result, which features a range of ergonomic features that are intentionally designed to lessen patients’ anxiety and enable comfort. Rather than compress the breast automatically, the patient can set compression to a level that feels right for them under the direction of a technician. Sharing this power of control with the patient helps to ease their feelings of pain and anxiety.

Empathic care future vision

<h2>A Scenario of the Future: Empathic Care in 2030 </h2>
The physician-patient relationship has been replaced by the care team-healthcare consumer relationship. Physicians have become akin to data scientists or esteemed chefs — their “back of the house” role is dedicated to medical and technical expertise, while new professionals handle “bedside manner.” The newly robust care team includes care service personnel, digital health assistants, nutritionists, mental health professionals, and health coaches who primarily manage the consumer’s daily emotional, social, and wellness needs. This consumer-model assumes an empowered patient who is an equal partner with the care team. 
The medical office looks like a spa, to be as inviting and calm as possible. An oncologist has studied the patient’s biopsy and other data to develop a myriad of treatment options that might suit the patient’s values and needs. Care service personnel explain the cancer diagnosis using VR and elucidate how different treatment approaches will affect their dayto-day lives. The patient can “ping” the oncologist on a remote network, but they are more likely to get in touch with a care coordinator to help ensure that the patient maintains quality of life during the treatment.
<h2>Your Opportunities </h2>
1. Design for a more dignified experience. Consumers will not want to use products that chip at their feelings of self-worth. To ensure treatment adherence, the product or experience has the responsibility to facilitate support during the healing journey. 
2. Use tech to enable emotional experiences, not replace them. AI, data analytics and automation are here to stay. How can you use these processes to meet patients’ emotional needs? How might they free up provider time to enable connection? 
3. Tap into the power of community. By providing a space for peer communities to form, your engagement with the consumer will extend beyond product features. Strong social connections build brand loyalty. 
<h2>Potential Pitfall </h2>
Failure of authenticity. Are you just using buzzwords instead of acting on them? If so, consumers know, and will call you out. It is extremely important to practice what you preach, as failure to meet raised expectations provokes ill will. 
 Next: <a href="https://www.delve.com/insights/how-to-design-the-healthcare-products-of-the-future-part-3-data-informed-personalization" target="_blank">How to Design the Healthcare Products of the Future, Part 3: </a><a href="https://www.delve.com/insights/how-to-design-the-healthcare-products-of-the-future-part-3-data-informed-personalization" target="_blank">Data-Informed Personalization</a>

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As the role of patient evolves into one of healthcare consumer, companies need to deliver an empathic care experience beyond better usability. Companies that provide more meaningful connection at an emotional and aspirational level will attract the next generation of healthcare consumers.

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As the role of patient evolves into one of healthcare consumer, companies need to deliver an empathic care experience beyond better usability. Companies that provide more meaningful connection at an emotional and aspirational level will attract the next generation of healthcare consumers.

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How to Design the Healthcare Products of the Future, Part 2: Empathic Care

How to Design the Healthcare Products of the Future, Part 2: Empathic Care

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