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The Downside of Healthcare Design
A House In Need of Order
I rarely ever dig into the detriments of working in healthcare design. Those critiques are usually buried in some article touting the benefits of working in this industry. But after many years as a healthcare designer, it’s easy to spot the negative aspects of the job.
On a long enough timeline, familiarity accentuates the imperfections.
It’s like my first house. The showing went well and I remember thinking how perfect it would be for my daughter, our new dog and myself. It had been freshly painted and carpeted. It was clean and empty with a huge backyard that was freshly trimmed. I couldn’t find a single flaw with it and could almost immediately envision myself living there.
Things changed after I moved in and lived there for a while. I began to notice the cracks in the ceiling. I noticed the flawed edge on the cheap linoleum and how the backdoor didn’t quite shut right. I noticed the leak in the roof the inspector didn’t find and the shared driveway that was a pain in the ass to pull in and out of. I didn’t have to live there long before I realized it wasn’t as perfect as I thought it was. Life wasn’t as grand as I envisioned it would be.
There are a lot of things in life like that. That new job you thought was going to catapult your career. The new car or the new computer. That new “smart” TV that doesn’t seem to be so smart. My first marriage.
Familiarity accentuates the imperfections.
My venture into healthcare UX was like this. I saw the field of healthcare as ripe for the picking — a grand place for a designer to both sharpen and utilize their skills. I even predicted a massive upsurge of designers in healthcare — a prediction that has yet to materialize.
Slowly, I began to notice the cracks in the ceiling, the leaky roof and the linoleum that didn’t quite fit the floor right. That huge backyard? It was great to roam around in, get lost in. But it was albatross around my neck when the mowing season arrived. Healthcare UX was like much else in my life. Fifteen years of working in the industry allowed me to see opportunities. But it also allowed me to see all that was wrong and all of the hurdles I would need to surmount.
