In a large, airy room at the headquarters of healthcare company Philips, in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, a group of local teenagers are earnestly discussing how to improve care for ‘Robin’ – a patient about their own age who is suffering from appendicitis.
Every step of the journey, from diagnosis to recovery, is illustrated by 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 is looking to tap into the wisdom of this group of digital natives, ages 13 to 15, to help them rethink healthcare and identify technologies that can improve the patient experience.
“We do this because when we meet young people, we are actually looking at the future of healthcare,” says Peter Skillman, only the eighth global head of design in Philips’ nearly 100-year history. He proudly displays a book with photos of his predecessors to underline the legacy he has inherited.
The usefulness of this youthful group lies not only in its insight into what the next generation of healthcare workers and patients will want. It is also the ability to apply an open, agile mentality and influence healthcare in the here and now.
Skillman suggests that this is a generation that expects information to be delivered quickly and in easily digestible form. And members lack the automatic deference to clinical authority that their parents or grandparents may have shown.
He adds: “They can change tasks very quickly and are very flexible. So they are users of emerging new technology [they have a] very low threshold for trying out new things.”
Skillman was previously struck by a comment from one of the teens who recalled being told after undergoing a medical test that she had to wait for a doctor to come and read the results. “She said, ‘I had to wait so long and the doctor came in two minutes and said, ‘Everything’s fine,’” he recalls. ‘And she was [asking] ‘Why?’ They have no respect for the hierarchy of medical leadership. What they think is ‘these people serve me’.”
Divided into groups, the young people first talk through the storyboards and explore the feelings they evoke. Certain common themes emerge: concern about what could go wrong during surgery; a desire to receive information quickly and in a way they can understand; a wish to spare their parents worries.
They are then taken to another part of the building, where senior software architect Jean-Marc Huijskens introduces them to a variety of modern technologies that any teenager will be happy with. These include demonstrations of augmented and virtual reality [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 measure its size determine the stent needed to hold blood vessels open.
Back in their groups, further discussion follows before the young people present their ideas with shy pride. These include: a ‘care robot’, to alleviate the feeling of insecurity and uncertainty that often exists among young patients; an AI avatar to prepare them for what to expect from the treatment; and a robotic stuffed animal to keep worried younger patients company. The alleged inventions would all use generative AI, allowing patients to have questions about their hospital stays answered in real time.
The young people’s ideas need to be validated by a wider group, including designers, engineers, patient groups and doctors. However, past experience shows that at least some of these can bear fruit.
Skillman cites a 2019 session in which another group of teens spent time in one of the 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 give me medical talk, because I don’t understand it.” Now the company is using an AI-powered program to communicate complex medical diagnoses in simple language.
Recognizing that these young people are not only the patients, but also the doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals of the future, Philips’ director of data-enabled solutions, Robert-Jan de Pauw, also organizes sessions for people considering a clinical career. They are asked to try out existing and prototype technologies.
Building a new system, he says, “may take about seven and a half to 10 years.” So by the time it hits the market, these teens could be old enough to use it as adult medical professionals.
De Pauw points out small but meaningful differences that influence Philips’ design decisions based on the information collected during these sessions.
For example, when handling remote controls, he notes, teenagers “use their thumb, while older people tend to use the pointing finger. We think it is very important to get the insights of younger people, as they are the future users of the system.”
At the end of their morning immersed in health technology, two of the young people in the session witnessed by the FT are buzzing with the new information and perspectives they have acquired.
With her teacher as an interpreter, Diede Tyssens, 14, who is considering midwifery as a career, says she “loved being able to dive into the medical world.”
Her 15-year-old classmate Anuraag Nayak, who is considering biology or medicine as a future path, says he has “learned a lot. I didn’t even know stuff like that [as simulations and VR] existed”.
He himself recently suffered from appendicitis, which gave the day’s activities a special resonance for him: “This project was quite personal,” he says.