In a large, airy room at the headquarters of healthcare company Philips in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, a group of local teenagers are seriously discussing how to improve care for “Robin,” a patient about their age who suffers from appendicitis. .
Each step of the journey, from diagnosis to recovery, is illustrated using AI-generated storyboards. But while the scenario is imaginary, this is more than just a well-intentioned but ultimately expendable form of community outreach.
Philips seeks to harness the wisdom of this group of digital natives, ages 13 to 15, to help them rethink care and identify technologies that can improve the patient experience.
“We do this because, if we meet with young people, we are actually looking at the future of healthcare,” says Peter Skillman, who is only the eighth global head of design in Philips’ nearly 100-year history. He proudly displays a book with photographs of his predecessors to underline the legacy he has inherited.
The usefulness of this youth group is not simply their knowledge of what the next generation of healthcare workers and patients will want. So is your ability to apply an open, agile mindset and influence attention in the here and now.
This, Skillman suggests, is a generation that expects information to be delivered quickly and in easily digestible form. And its members lack the automatic deference to clinical authority that their parents or grandparents might have shown.
And he adds: “They can change tasks very quickly and are very adaptable. They are users of new emerging technologies, so [they have a] Very low threshold to try new things.”
Skillman had been struck by an earlier comment from one of the teenagers who had recalled that, after undergoing a medical examination, he had been told to wait for a doctor to come and read the result. “She said, ‘I had to wait a long time and the doctor came and said, within two minutes, ‘everything is fine,’” she recalls. “And she went [asking] ‘because?’ They do not respect the hierarchy of medical leadership. What they think is ‘these people are serving me.'”
Divided into groups, the young people first talk about the storyboards, exploring the feelings they evoke. Certain common themes emerge: worry about what could go wrong in the surgery; a desire to receive information quickly and in ways they can understand; a desire to spare his parents worry.
They are then taken to a different part of the building, where senior software architect Jean-Marc Huijskens introduces them to a variety of cutting-edge technologies that would delight any teenager. These include augmented and virtual reality demonstrations. [AR and VR] (a simulated immersive experience used, in this case, to show what it feels like to drive while extremely tired) and a machine that allows surgeons to see a 3D image of the heart, allowing them to determine the size of the stent needed to retain the blood. open glasses.
Back in their groups, further discussion ensues before, with shy pride, the young people present their ideas. These include: a “care robot”, to mitigate the sense of insecurity and uncertainty that young patients often feel; an AI avatar to prepare them on what to expect from treatment; and a “hugging animal” robot to keep worried younger patients company. All of the supposed inventions would leverage generative AI, ensuring patients could have their questions about their hospital stay answered in real time.
Young people’s ideas need to be validated by a broader group, including designers, engineers, patient groups and doctors. However, past experience suggests that at least some of them may bear fruit.
Skillman cites a 2019 session in which another group of teenagers spent time in one of their innovation labs, learning how catheters are used in hospitals to perform procedures in a less invasive way than traditional surgery.
“What they said was: ‘I want you to tell me immediately what happened [during the procedure] in simple terms. “Don’t talk to me about a doctor, because I don’t understand it.” Now, the company uses an AI-powered program to communicate complicated medical diagnoses in simple language.
Aware that these young people are not only the patients, but also the doctors, nurses and healthcare workers of the future, Philips’ director of data-driven solutions, Robert-Jan de Pauw, also organizes sessions for those contemplating a clinical career. They are asked to test existing technologies and prototypes.
Building a new system, he says, “takes us between seven and a half to ten years, maybe.” Then, when it is on the market, these teenagers may be old enough to use it as adult medical professionals.
De Pauw points out small but telling differences that are influencing Philips’ design decisions from the information gathered during these sessions.
For example, when handling remote controls, teenagers, he notes, “use their thumb, while older people tend to use their pointing finger. We believe that it is very important to know the opinion of the youngest, since they are the future users of the system.”
At the end of their morning immersed in health technology, two of the young people present at the session witnessed by the Financial Times are excited about the new information and perspectives they have gained.
With her teacher acting as interpreter, Diede Tyssens, 14, who is considering midwifery as a career, says she “loved being able to immerse herself in the world of medicine.”
His 15-year-old classmate, Anuraag Nayak, who is considering biology or medicine as a future path, says he “learned a lot. He didn’t even know those things [as simulations and VR] existed.”
He recently had his own brush with appendicitis, which gave the day’s activities a particular resonance for him: “This project was quite personal,” he says.