Let’s make it a right-brained 2012
Editor’s note: This article was written by guest blogger Anthony Cirillo, FACHE, ABC, a healthcare marketing and experience management expert and expert guide in assisted living for about.com. For more information about the author, please see our About page.
I’m getting the New Year’s resolutions out of the way a month early. One I would like to put forth is that we make it a right-brained 2012.
In September, speaker and author Daniel Pink gave the opening keynote to the American Health Care Association. While citing the logical and linear value of the left side of the brain, Pink emphasized the importance of the right brain, which is the home of our emotions and artistic, big picture thinking. It’s in acknowledging the right side of the brain, he says, when you truly start looking at the resident and patient experience in a new light.
Pink stressed six abilities stemming from the right brain that are needed in a successful business, one of which is design. Here are some examples where design is enhancing experience and affecting quality of care.
- The GPS-enabled shoe developed by Aetrex Worldwide and GTX Corp. features a location-based tracking service that alerts caregivers via an application when an Alzheimer’s disease patient leaves a designated “geo-fenced” area, such as the boundaries of your facility. Caregivers can also remotely monitor the location of patients. Sure there are other GPS trackers and fall alerts out there, but how many of them are in a shoe? Certainly this is a much more dignified place – out of sight and mind for the resident, who does not need another reminder that some of his or her independence has been taken away. Pendant and wrist-enabled devices, while great technologies, remind people of their circumstances. This is probably a reason why my mother refuses to let us get her an alert system.
- Until recently, the pharmacy pill bottle had remained virtually unchanged since World War II. Deborah Adler, a graphic designer, redesigned the bottle for her thesis project. It is called Safe Rx. She approached the FDA about the design, but one of Target’s creative directors saw her work, snapped up the patent, and rolled it out in record time.
Symphony, Pink says, is another necessary ability. It allows for big picture thinking, or being able to connect the dots, if you will.
Empathy, another required ability for success, allows us to consider outside perspectives, Pink says. He gave the example of Duracell Batteries, whose sales of hearing aide batteries were tanking because the package was too difficult to open – the result of a young person creating the packaging design to fit his or her needs and not those of the older individuals who will purchase the product.
In 1895, a young teenager named Joshua Cowan invented the electric flowerpot. He took a slender metal tube with a battery inside and a bulb at the end, and put it into a flowerpot, illuminating the floral beauty previously lost to the night. He made many of these flash sticks and was waiting for the world to beat a path to his door. A sympathetic uncle, Conrad Hubert, supported him and purchased the rights to the invention. He realized the market was thin for this product, so he wracked his brain looking for alternatives. What else could it illuminate? It was a light you could flash anywhere, ready for use when you needed it. Instead of being a flash stick for an electric flowerpot, it became the flashlight.
So why can’t we think of things like that you ask? Perhaps we could if we look at the world through fresher, wider eyes. That second effort by Hubert unleashed unparalleled success. And it also shed light (pardon the pun) on how to think like an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs are inherently right-brained, I believe, at least at the start before their businesses grow into traditional organizations. They look at situations and see whether or not they can find:
- The unexpected, that is, new uses for a product or service
- The unleashed, that is, new directions for a product or service
- The uncharted, that is, new areas for a product or service
Perhaps this comes down to your hiring. Perhaps in 2012, we resolve to bring in more right-brained board members, leaders, and staff members.
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Justin Veiga
Justin Veiga is an editor in the long-term care division of HCPro. He edits books, moderates audio conferences, and writes the monthly newsletter PPS Alert for Long-Term Care and the MDS 3.0 Update e-newsletter.
Justin has written 51 posts.
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