Why digital health interventions fail Healthcare World’s Data Correspondent Simon Swift speaks to Dr Steve Hajioff about the shortcomings of digital health innovations, and how their failures can be corrected
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igital health, as a concept, has one purpose - to help people. Not just clinicians, not just healthcare workers or management, but everyone. It’s a noble idea - and absolutely fantastic when it works. However, all too often, we see digital health innovations turn out to be a complete dud. Sometimes they just don’t work; sometimes they try to solve a problem which isn’t there. Sometimes they even identify a problem but the solution provided is poor and doesn’t solve it. This makes many digital health ventures
low impact or even entirely useless - they act as a detriment to higher quality, higher value, personalised, healthcare. I spoke to Dr Steve Hajioff, CMO of Sana Life Sciences and Consultant in Health Policy and Technology, about the issues which often arise within digital health models and solutions - and what can be done throughout the process to ensure that interventions identify solutions accurately, provide benefits effectively, improving outcomes and delivering better value healthcare.
The seven points of failure Steve has seen a wide range of system failures within digital health and has identified one of a set of seven points of failure each and every time. 1. The Deus Ex Machina The belief that data, and data alone, holds the power to solve problems, without any thought or process applied to managing or understanding what to do with the data itself. 2. The User Experience Catastrophe When a project is designed and built to specification, without thought put into the experience of the people who will have to use it on a day to day basis. A building built without an architect. 3. Good Idea, Bad Approach When the best intentions exist to solve a problem but insufficient user consultation, poor planning and
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