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A common mistake a lot of product people (and people in general) make in healthtech is assuming technology can solve problems that are primarily caused by a lack of receiving healthcare
One story that really stuck with me was when I was shadowing an ER social worker in North Carolina. She was walking me through her process for assessing social needs and referring patients to community resources. I kept asking questions around paper vs digital workflows.
3/x “What drives you to use your paper lists of resources and assessments”
“do you ever use the SAMHSA online portal to find treatment facilities”
“How do you use technology to coordinate CBO referrals”
eventually this social worker stops what she’s doing and tells me a story
“do you ever use the SAMHSA online portal to find treatment facilities”
“How do you use technology to coordinate CBO referrals”
eventually this social worker stops what she’s doing and tells me a story
4/x She points at a patient in her EHR and says “this man is in the ED because he’s housing insecure and doesn’t have a PCP”
“He got banned from the one men’s shelter in our town, we don’t have a second men’s shelter so he has nowhere to stay, *how is tech going to help him*”
“He got banned from the one men’s shelter in our town, we don’t have a second men’s shelter so he has nowhere to stay, *how is tech going to help him*”
5/x At this point I realized that I could do amazingly creative user discovery, and take back some great insight to an engineering team to build slick product and it would not change a single thing about the fact that her patient needed a men’s shelter who would accept him
6/x it’s a story I come back to often since some customer, and user, and patient problems stem from a lack of access to actual health care resources: a trained medical professional supporting patients with their socio-clinical needs
7/x I am hopeful, however, for the role of product in solving these types of problems in the future.
With the rise of new value based models, many tech enabled provider startups are launching and they view tech as key.
With the rise of new value based models, many tech enabled provider startups are launching and they view tech as key.
8/8 some time after I heard this story, @eleanor_health, @cityblockhealth, and @OakStreetHealth all launched outpatient clinics in North Carolina, increasing the alternatives patients have to receive care in lieu of going to ERs
One postscript: as new provider organizations step in to solve the problem of increasing care and access, product and engineering and key to solving problems related to capacity and throughput in order to increase the scale of those provider organizations
