Cactus Applies Design Principles to Healthcare

In this interview, Nat Carruthers, Head of Product at Cactus, discusses the opportunities for better design in the health care space. Change is hard and it’s easy “to be a nay-sayer”, but Carruthers calls on core change agents at health care organizations to apply patience and dedication to find “quick wins” and build on them incrementally.

A sizeable portion of the video looks at the different goals and challenges of health care organizations and fitness companies. Most patients visit their health care providers only once a year, or a few times a year. Keeping the patient engaged is a major concern. Health care organizations also face lots of rules and regulations.

By contrast, fitness apps interact with a patient several times a day and are less constrained by regulation, but focus on one approach or goal.

Carruthers says that most patients trust their health care provider and would prefer for them to provide the intense interaction and goal orientation of the fitness firms. Catcus, a multidisciplinary design firm, helps fill this gap.

Carruthers addresses the difficulty of making serious change in an organization, and particularly addressing the often competing needs of different clients (patients, doctors, nurses, management) as well as regulation. He says that a successful organization requires people with “wild curiosity to make the change happen” to push forward.

Paraphrasing Oscar Wilde’s famous definition of a cynic, Carruthers warns about people who think only about the costs of change and don’t see its benefits. Ideas can be “small and fragile,” easily crushed.

Proponents of change shouldn’t try to “move the whole mountain all at once,” but start small and deliberately set aside some of the broader considerations that they can address later.

Watch the video for a fascinating viewpoint about organizational design and transformation in health care.

Learn more about Cactus: https://www.cactus.is/

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