6 Lessons from Healthtech Design and Product Leaders That Will Inspire You To Join The Industry
By: Taylor Gilbert
Tags: Healthcare, UX, Healthtech, Startup, Product Design

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

Healthcare is not known for well-designed technology. The industry is extraordinarily complicated, highly regulated, and dominated by entrenched legacy companies. Despite (or perhaps because of) these challenges, startups and major tech companies like Apple and Google are getting into healthcare.

I interviewed four design and product leaders in healthtech startups to better understand the industry

I am deeply grateful to all of them for taking the time to share their insights. They all showed passion and enthusiasm for making healthcare better through great products.

Philip Johnson — Co-Founder + Chief Product Officer @ Enzyme Health

Andy Keil — Head of Product @ DocStation

Eric Boggs — UX Director @ EverlyWell

Diana Gonzalez — Senior UX Designer @ Wellsmith

The interviews have been edited for length and clarity with the permission of the interviewees.

Lesson 1 — Focus on design and rapid iteration for a competitive advantage in a traditional industry like healthcare

When I asked Andy Keil of DocStation if he faces skepticism about the value of a robust product process, he said, “absolutely not.” He emphasized that great product and rapid iteration has been their competitive advantage against traditional healthcare companies. Healthtech startups are raising the bar for design and product while creating new business models in the process.

“We are able to move at lightning speed”

—Andy Keil, DocStation

Philip Johnson, Co-Founder of Enzyme Health, said that great design is “expected” in healthtech startups, unlike in legacy healthcare companies. Adding, “Advocating for a robust product and design process is a huge challenge anywhere. In healthcare it’s even more important because it can literally mean the difference between life and death.”

Lesson 2— Look at regulation as an opportunity

I initially assumed that startups would see healthcare regulation as a frustrating hurdle to overcome, but they see it as an opportunity. Andy Keil said, “Regulation is actually an advantage because there is a bit of a barrier to entry [for potential competitors] once you are able to enter a market.”

Navigating the regulations is often front-loaded. “The hardest part is to find a business model that works for the company and with the regulation,” said Diana Gonzalez of Wellsmith. After the business model is defined, the regulation in the industry provides unique opportunities.

“We provide a lot of value to our customers by helping them navigate the complex and evolving regulations that govern our industry.” — Philip Johnson, Enzyme Health

Of course, there are still challenges that require creative solutions. “Your instinct as a designer is to provide users with what they are looking for. They are looking for a clear indicator of what to do next,” said Eric Boggs. EverlyWell provides on-demand lab testing, but only doctors are empowered to make diagnoses. This means that they can’t direct users to specific treatments based on the lab test results, so they built a network of doctors they can refer to as needed.

Lesson 3— Don’t pass on the complexity of healthcare to your users

“Part of the reason health technology is often so poorly designed is that [the designers] are passing on the complexity [of healthcare] to their users,” said Philip Johnson. Adding, “I view complexity as layers. You should build your software in a way to let you abstract that complexity away when needed.” While simplifying a complex process for users is a core skill for anyone in product, it’s especially important in healthtech.

“Business model complexity is ‘how do you integrate your service with other companies and medical providers?’ The second level is user complexity. ‘How do you make a product patients can integrate into their daily life?’” — Diana Gonzalez, Wellsmith

Andy Keil described the early days of DocStation, “Sometimes you just want to pound your head against the wall, but once you get past it things get exciting.” Like with regulation, the complexity of healthcare can be a competitive advantage for those willing to take it on. Companies can provide a lot of value by making a workflow that is normally difficult simple and intuitive.

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

Lesson 4— Protect patient privacy in every part of your process

“It’s important to bake in privacy to the very beginning of the discovery process. Knowing what the parameters are before you begin can save you a lot of wasted effort. HIPAA has implications on aspects that aren’t intuitive — even the physical space you work in,” said Philip Johnson. He explained, “For example, if there are any computer screens that might show sensitive content, you have to be aware of who can see them, particularly visitors.”

“Privacy concerns have a lot of impact . . . It’s one of the things that keep us up at night.” — Andy Keil, DocStation

Eric Boggs explained how they adapted their approach to ensure privacy saying, “We looked at sending patients content about their conditions, but we have to be very careful about how their health information is shared [since the type of content reveals their condition].” Instead, EverlyWell asks users to log in to the platform to view the content. “It adds friction but our priority is to protect the users’ privacy.”

While removing friction is often one of the hallmarks of good UX, it should never be accomplished at the cost of protecting user’s privacy, especially with sensitive health information.

Lesson 5 — Healthtech has a huge positive impact on both patients and medical professionals

Diana Gonzalez said of her experiences at Wellsmith, “Patients talk about how our product has changed their life through better habits. They will live longer with their family to see their grandkids due to better management of their health condition.” The tech industry is, unfortunately, often known more for social media-induced anxiety than helping people live better, longer lives, so this perspective was refreshing.

“The pharmacists we work with are used to having to manually enter data, so our system blows their minds.” — Andy Keil, DocStation

Philip Johnson told me “We are really lucky to see the impact we have on people every single day. Just the other day we got an email from a nurse practitioner who can now spend more time at home with her kids instead of on hours of admin work.”

Lesson 6 — If you want to solve big problems and see the impact of your contributions, work in healthtech

“Don’t let the regulation [in healthcare] scare you. It can be intimidating,” said Philip Johnson. Start by “observing your own journey as a consumer of healthcare. What problems would make sense to solve?” Healthcare impacts everyone in a deeply personal way. While you could live your entire life and never use UberEats or Spotify (not that you would want to), it’s virtually guaranteed you will have to use healthcare.

“Of all the UX jobs, healthtech is a unique opportunity to impact people’s lives in a positive way.” — Diana Gonzalez, Wellsmith

“There has never been a better time to get into the field. There is so much low hanging fruit in healthtech,” said Johnson. Emphasizing, “We can’t wait around for all of the bureaucracy in government to change. People are taking their healthcare into their own hands.” Trendy startups like social media, food delivery, ridesharing, etc. tend to get the most attention from designers, but that also means new, major innovations are that much harder to find. Working in a relatively untapped space like healthtech offers the opportunity for meaningful, large-scale contributions.