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Redesigning the system

Tim Brown, president and CEO of design consulting firm IDEO talks about the role that design thinking can play in transforming healthcare.

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[A third of these principles ]

[is the idea of enabling self-measurement. ]

[We have to get the tools of change into]

[the hands of individuals. ]

[And, indeed, Keep the Change and MINT were examples]

[of how getting these tools into the individuals' hands can have impact. ]

[And we heard about it earlier, I think, again in the first session, ]

[that unless something can be measured,]

[it's very hard to improve it, ]

[because we're just talking about intuition all the time, otherwise. ]

[So what are the kinds of tools that we can get into the hands of ordinary people]

[that help them measure their own behavior?]

[There are all kinds of examples. ]

[Some of them more classic health-like products.]

[This, for instance, is Bayer's Contour]

[blood glucose monitor, which is the first]

[meter that plugs directly into somebody's laptop in order to launch]

[its diabetes management software]

[so that patients can have instant access to their own blood sugar data]

[and trends to help them kind of optimize ]

[their own diabetes management. ]

[Another one which is one of my favorites examples is a much more]

[low-tech, in a way. ]

[This is a weighing scale produced by a European company]

[that's wi-fi enabled, ]

[so when you stand on your weighing scales in the morning,]

[it transmits your weight to ]

[your iPhone and your laptop. ]

[And you can see here this is the application that ]

[pops up on your iPhone or your laptop, which ]

[can be rather miserable in terms of looking at that every morning ]

[and having it around with you, but, on the other hand, ]

[there's no getting away from the fact that you actually know what ]

[your weight has been. ]

[And more importantly, what you know the trend has been. ]

[Again, in terms of when it comes to reminding people about behavior,]

[it's often trends that are more important than the point data. ]

[And there are going to be many, many more of these kinds of devices]

[that use very low cost sensing technology]

[and wireless technology appearing]

[in the future. ]

[Indeed, one that I think is quite interesting--]

[a little start-up that's just north of us]

[in Redwood City in Silicon Valley--]

[is one that's worth keeping an eye on, I think. ]

[It's called Proteus.]

[They've developed a technology for making edible]

[antennae to go into pills so that when ]

[combined with a little body-worn patch, ]

[every time you take a pill the patch knows exactly that you've taken the pill,]

[what your body temperature was when you took the pill, what your]

[heart rate was when you took the pill, what your physical]

[attitude was when you took the pill, a whole bunch of data that's then collected. ]

[And, again, it can be delivered both to physicians and patients. ]

[These kinds of technologies are]

[going to start to create some interesting things]

[and some potential for some interesting new services. ]

[So measurement is important. ]

[Fourth one is one that I think is a]

[sort of very human idea which is]

[as much as we may want to change our behavior]

[we have a really hard time balancing what ]

[we might call our impulsive selves and our considered selves. ]

[Our own irrationality, if you like, is]

[one of the biggest challenges to behavior change. ]

[I think the classical economists have]

[rather got it wrong. ]

[We do not behave in our own self interest a lot of the time,]

[especially when our emotions get in the way. ]

[We're not thinking about how likely it is]

[we are to have a heart attack when that big piece]

[of chocolate cake arrives in front of us after dinner. ]

[So one of the tricks, I think, to designing for behavior]

[change is to give people a chance to reflect]

[and consider their behavior in order to make]

[better choices, to actually reduce the number of times]

[when, perhaps, they behave just impulsively. ]

[So, again, there are lots of interesting applications emerging]

[to help people do that. ]

[One that I quite like, because it's free, again for the iPhone,]

[is one called Lose It, which just allows]

[you to simply record what you're eating and ]

[how you're exercising every day. ]

[These applications have been around for the PC forever, ]

[but the difference is when you're carrying it around with you. ]

[The difference is when you pull it out at every meal and you fill ]

[it in at every meal. ]

[That is the difference. ]

[So it's the mobility piece that's making these kinds of applications effective. ]

[It's not so much the idea of the application itself, ]

[it's having it at the moment when you might otherwise be impulsive]

[that I think these kinds of things are useful. ]

[So we need to look for opportunities to intervene at the moment]

[of irrational behavior, and that can be anywhere. ]

[That can be to do with obesity, it could be to do with]

[washing hands at the hospital. ]

[How can we intervene at the moment of wrong behavior, as it were,]

[in order to encourage people to reflect on the implications]

[of not doing the right thing or of doing the right thing. ]