Recent Blog Posts
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Down the patient portal: the world of healthcare tech serving you data about you
The subject of patient engagement tools, especially patient portals, took up permanent residence in my head last January when my mother, a few months away from achieving octogenarian status, experienced a health event that would change both of our lives. When she came home from the hospital, suddenly she was no longer under 24-7 observation…
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Out of our minds: externalized cognition and UX design
Imagine an app that feels like it thinks along with you, rather than for you. Instead of simple automation, it selectively offloads tasks requiring significant mental effort—the ones that slow you down. That’s a well-known concept in UX called “cognitive offloading,” usually referring to intuitive design of the type that Steve Krug wrote about in…
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Leveling up in the DOOM pile that was 2024
2024 was…a learning experience. Every day I learned something, whether I wanted to or not. It was a crash course in elder care, and an object lesson in patience, resilience, and creative problem-solving. It was, and is, a DOOM pile (a pile which you Didn’t Organize, Only Moved) of a life. The experience A DOOM…
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Sora and the painbot
Yes, I know it sounds like a children’s story. And in some senses it is, because we’re talking about imagination and empathy. But the unfortunate focus is a universal human experience that drives the pursuit of healthcare, yet its inherently subjective nature makes it challenging (even impossible?) to measure objectively, even with advanced AI. Sora…
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I (don’t) feel your pain: A dialog with ChatGPT about what “empathic AI” in healthcare really means
Quick TOC: First up, I’m letting you in on a somewhat rambling (but edited) conversation that I had with ChatGPT about its own limitations in healthcare, and the limitations of those designing and using it. Then I review the research on where things currently stand with empathy and AI, and why we don’t have AI…
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Editorial Cartooning as Visual Storytelling
Political cartoons illustrate the cultural zeitgeist– literally– while also offering critical commentary on it. An editorial cartoonist has a vast arsenal of tools at her disposal, allowing her to create visual metaphors, transmit brief but powerful narratives, elicit emotional responses, and present compelling arguments to persuade, inform, and potentially bolster public opinion. An editorial cartoon…