A RAD New Vision
Most people typically have only brief, sporadic interactions with their healthcare provider for most of their lives. This type of engagement can lead to bad experiences for patients. Medical care can feel like it has unnecessary steps, strained relationships, and a lack of overall continuity.
Through an ethnographic design project with Kaiser Permanente (Project name: Reimagining Ambulatory Design or RAD), we developed a vision of ambulatory care that improves continuity by shifting the center of care from KP clinics and hospitals into peoples' activities, relationships, and communities. We called this the vision of Life Integration.
Instead of asking patients to work around the way Kaiser Permanente’s system operates, we created a robust set of strategies to weave healthcare into people’s lives. This work came together as concepts and strategies for five new outpatient care delivery platforms.
One of these platforms, Health Hub, was the basis for numerous RAD clinics built in the Southern California region.