The Texas Health CoLab Learning Series supports Austin’s health innovation ecosystem by offering classes, seminars and immersive workshops that are open to all Texas Health CoLab participants as well as the general public. Seminars usually occur the last Thursday of each month and are livestreamed to several locations across Texas.
Drawing examples from nearly two decades of experience, José Colucci, director of research and development at the Design Institute for Health at Dell Medical School, joined us for the January installment of the Texas Health CoLab Learning Series to explain the business impact of design in health.
Previously, Colucci was an associate partner and portfolio director at IDEO, where he designed medical devices and instruments with a focus not on product design but on consumer experience design, highlighting the importance of understanding the user and how the product would fit into their life. After 16 years, Colucci moved from Boston to Austin to join the Design Institute, a startup inside a startup inside a large public institution with a mission to change health care globally.
During his session for the learning series, Colucci elaborated on the vision of the Design Institute: to go from the current, physician-led system to self-enabled care; from transactional to person-centric; from siloed to integrated care; to expand the focus of health care from solely medical care to include social determinants of health. His talk addressed how health care needs to shift toward value-based care by examining PATIENT outcomes and cost. The Design Institute is interested in supporting better outcomes that will, over time, lead to lower medical costs.
Colucci outlined how modern full-stack companies — such as Harry’s, Warby Parker, Apple and others — build a complete end-to-end product or service that bypasses incumbents and beats out established competitors. Health care is well-positioned to be full-stack: asserting full control over the patient experience.
Did you ever wonder why Gillette Fusion 2 products have many empty slots for blades? View the recording of Colucci’s seminar and find out.
To find out about upcoming seminars and to register, please visit the Texas Health CoLab Learning Series website.