8: Lygeia Ricciardi: Prioritizing Patient-Centered Design

At the heart of nearly every health IT project is the patient, and that’s where Lygeia Ricciardi’s heart is, too. As Chief Transformation Officer of the digital health startup Carium and a former leader at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), Ricciardi brings a deep understanding of patient needs, which can get lost in the shuffle—especially as the healthcare industry grows more complex each day. Ricciardi’s experience has also helped her understand that increasing complexity means healthcare organizations and developers face new challenges in building apps that resonate with and serve their patient population’s best interests. What’s really missing from those apps today? Empathy and connection, Ricciardi says. There are tons of great apps that help patients accomplish practical feats like counting calories. But a real sense of connection and support for these patients’ underlying motivations—like getting to a healthy weight or improving their diabetes, for example—should be a key focus for health system leaders and developers as they kickoff new projects. Tune into this episode of InterSystems PULSEcast to learn how to measure and meet patient needs, overcome the cultural, financial and privacy challenges that stand between you and your next successful app, and direct your assets and resources appropriately to ensure you’re putting forth your best effort to engage your patient population with human-centered design.