Ariel McNichol

Personas aren’t just marketing fluff: they’re strategic tools for designing better digital experiences. This article reminds us that 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘀, when done right, synthesize user research into realistic archetypes that guide design decisions. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴, 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘴. In healthcare, that means clinicians, patients, and even back-office staff. But let’s be clear: personas are only useful if they’re based on real data, not stereotypes or wishful thinking. The authors emphasize that personas should be grounded in qualitative and quantitative research, and they should evolve as your understanding of users deepens. If your #EHR redesign is based on “Dr. Busy” and “Nurse Nancy” without actual workflow analysis, you’re doing it wrong. For healthcare executives looking to apply this: 🧠 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵; don’t rely on assumptions about clinicians or patients. 📊 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 in EHRs, patient portals, and CDS tools. 🔁 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 as workflows and technologies evolve. 🧩 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘀 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀, not buried in a slide deck. Want help turning your clinician archetypes into usable personas for workflow redesign or digital transformation? I’ve got thoughts.

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If you’re still thinking of pricing as a line item, you’re already behind. In healthcare, climate, and infrastructure, your revenue model is your system design. It’s how you -->Align incentives across fragmented stakeholders, Capture value across time and interface, and Preserve mission without sacrificing scale. I just helped a women’s fertility platform re-architect their monetization model into three distinct revenue streams: DTC, reimbursable care, and B2B SaaS for providers... all without diluting their core product or confusing the user. This results in inncreased LTV, more aligned stakeholders, and a system that can actually scale. I believe every early-stage founder in complex categories should be designing hybrid revenue models from day one. 👉 Read the full piece on Substack: https://lnkd.in/gt9PcfKN

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"Nobody's gonna care about your app anymore." —Amir Dan Rubin nailed it at the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) Innovation Summit today. I couldn't agree with him more. The uncomfortable truth about AI? It doesn’t care about your UX. It doesn’t care about your account creation flow. (And fewer humans do now, too.) AI just wants to solve the problem as directly, efficiently, and correctly as it can. (GenAI hallucinates because it's sprinting toward 𝘢𝘯𝘺 answer, even if it has to make one up!) 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲𝗱. Patients. Physicians. Pharmacists. Everyone. They don't want your app-quicklink-download; they don't want to "engage with your company's incredible robo-vacuum community." AI might finally blow up the idea that distribution 🟰 value. In a world where agents or LLMs route the interaction, the new competitive edge will be: 1️⃣ Knowing the workflow down pat 2️⃣ Owning the best content/signal 3️⃣ Training the AI to actually solve the problem better than anyone else The reset is coming — and the winners won’t be the ones with the flashiest app, but the ones with the deepest expertise. Looking forward to a great discussion! Brian Anderson, MD Lucy Orr-Ewing Brenton Hill, JD, MHA Gregory Shemancik, MHA

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40 seconds. That’s how long it takes many clinicians to log in to a shared device. Now imagine repeating that process 10+ times a day. In a clinical environment, that delay isn’t just inefficient… it’s dangerous. As I have been spending more time talking with Healthcare organizations about the BlueFletch toolset, I have learned that there is a big difference in the way Healthcare perceives wasted time vs how other industries perceive it. My key takeaway "Bad user experience. Not just in software, but in workflows, hardware decisions, and how we think about security vs. access... is a hidden threat in healthcare" This isn’t about designing prettier buttons. It’s about giving nurses and doctors the time and focus to care. Check out the video I recorded with Brett Cooper on some of my key learnings and takeaways around the differences between HC and other industries. https://lnkd.in/exE7REEs #HealthcareIT #ClinicalUX #FrontlineTech #DigitalHealth #BlueFletch

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In this episode of Designing for Health, I sat down with Brandy Parker, a design director at IDEO, to explore how human-centered design can radically improve healthcare experiences. Brandy shared her journey from social science to design leadership, emphasizing the power of 𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗰 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 and 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀. We discussed her work on Teal Health, an at-home cervical cancer screening tool designed to be accessible, intuitive, and emotionally supportive, especially for marginalized populations. The results? A staggering 92% of users preferred self-collection if accuracy matched in-office tests. We also tackled the loaded term “patient adherence,” reframing it as a design and accessibility challenge rather than a motivational failure. Brandy highlighted how “bad prototypes” and patient workarounds (like using a deli slicer to open a pill bottle) reveal unmet needs and spark innovation. Her insights are a masterclass in designing for dignity, usability, and trust, especially in clinical trials and digital health tools. 🎧 You can listen to this episode, and the rest of the series, wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. Next steps for healthcare executives and physician leaders: 🧠 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲 “𝗻𝗼𝗻-𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲” as a design flaw, not a patient flaw. 🚪 𝗢𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹-𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀; they’re gold mines for innovation. 📦 Treat 𝘂𝗻𝗯𝗼𝘅𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁-𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 as clinical interventions. 🌍 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹𝘀: language, transport, and trust matter.

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I was drawn back into the consulting world to roll up my sleeves: to drive user experience innovation, patient engagement, and retention across #healthcare and #healthtech teams. To create at the intersection of behavioral science, design, and AI for healthcare. Or as I like to say, to “advocate for the humans using the machines.” Since then:   + I developed Health Behavior by Design™ - a method to bridge the gap between research and real-world application. This practice takes us beyond metrics and tracking to activate behavioral engagement. + I launched a Substack, in anticipation of my upcoming book, which dives deep into the psychology of health behavior change. I'm sharing “how tos” for  people who are worried about their friends and family navigating health at home: https://lnkd.in/gW2753uM + And most recently, I launched a refreshed website so we can easily connect to discuss my consulting services: https://lnkd.in/gAyzvThH

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Huge news from CMS for anyone building in tech-enabled care delivery & focused on chronic conditions. Yesterday, CMMI released a new outcomes-based payment model that some industry insiders are calling the biggest tailwind for digital health since COVID. It has major implications for companies managing chronic conditions, remote monitoring, virtual care, and value-based models. I spent time digging into the details with Jared Augenstein and Randi Seigel, who have been in the weeds on the ACCESS model since it dropped. Their insights helped me unpack: • How outcomes will actually be measured • Which digital health companies are best positioned • Who won’t qualify (and why) • What still isn’t clear about payment rates and targets • How this could impact PCPs, beneficiaries, and infrastructure vendors • Where the fraud and compliance risks live If you're working in digital health, chronic care, RPM, MSK, metabolic health, or infrastructure…this one is worth a read. Full breakdown here: https://lnkd.in/erSbFkd3

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What do two extra clicks really cost in healthcare UX? Say it adds just 4 seconds to reschedule a patient. One front desk rep handles 60 patients a day. That’s 4 seconds × 60 = 4 minutes/day Over a year: 4 minutes × 5 days/week × 50 weeks = 1,000 minutes, or 16.7 hours At $25/hour, that’s $417 per person, per year. On a 10-person team? You’re burning $4,170/year on just two unnecessary clicks. Now imagine that across multiple workflows - refills, referrals, intake. These aren’t edge cases. They’re everyday. Good healthcare UX doesn’t just look better. It works smarter. And it pays off. We cover how to find and fix these silent costs in Transition into UX for Healthcare. Next cohort’s May 17. Details in comments. What would you improve about healthcare UX?

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Steve Jobs once said about tablets: "If you see a stylus, they blew it." The point being that good design comes from elegance in simplicity. Adding layers of complexity (like stylus- rather than touch-based interface) is evidence of poor design. In healthcare payment models, if you see complicated formulas, they blew it. CMS' 2026 Proposed Changes to Physician Payments is unwieldy, confusing, and arbitrary. In a reimbursement world that begs for simplification, they gave us complexity. They not only gave us a stylus, they gave us one that's barely compatible with their product. The good news: the conversion factor and malpractice RVUs are going up around 3% each. The bad news is that part of that comes from a 2.5% increase in the OBBB that goes away after 2026. Work RVUs for most procedure codes are getting a -2.5% "efficiency" adjustment. In a shot across the RUC bow, CMS argues that its methodology is flawed: subjective and overinflated. The RUC, they say, represents significant conflict of interest (doctors setting their own pay). The biggest hit is to the Practice Expense (PE) RVU — a whopping 24% reduction from 2025. The argument here is that, because of consolidation, most doctors don't maintain separate offices. In other words, hospital or health system-based physicians are getting double payments: the facility fee + PE RVUs. Too bad private practice docs. The reasoning here is head scratching. It's true that most doctors are employed now. It's also true that declining reimbursement has been a major contributor to this trend. What's even more true is that consolidation raises prices. CMS' admission here is a lesson in circular logic and the tyranny of unintended consequences. We can all agree that healthcare payments are too complex. The RUC and RVU system are antiquated and increasingly ineffective. A long-term solution is needed. But adding complexity and confusion onto an already complicated system isn't the answer. They blew it. When it comes to payment models, elegance in simplicity comes from straightforward, bundled, condition-specific pricing with a reasonable risk-adjustment mechanism. A few more concepts that should be considered: site neutrality, physician-led models, elimination of prior authorizations, transparency. Apple later added a stylus input to the iPad: the Apple Pencil. The move wasn't done out of necessity; it was done based on feedback from people who loved the product — they saw the power in the iPad and wanted more. None of these payment reform attempts will be successful without user (clinician) input. CMS needs to create models that engage those delivering care instead of capitulating to consolidation. Give us something that's user friendly instead of user hostile. Leave us wanting more.

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In this new Forbes piece - the second of a series on healthcare & AI - I spoke with MD executives deploying AI in real clinical settings about why adoption so often breaks down after pilots succeed. The takeaway surprised no one on the front lines: 💡 AI doesn’t fail because the algorithms are weak. 💡 It fails because of design, incentives, and governance. Thanks to the physician leaders who shared their wisdom, including: S. Yin Ho, MD, MBA Aditi U Joshi MD, MSc, FACEP Shantanu Nundy Chethan Sarabu, MD Shikha Anand, MD, MPH Dr. Geeta Nayyar, MD, MBA Mahek Shah MD, MBA, MPA Snehal Patel, M.D., J.D. David Pares Anurag Mairal, PhD (He/His) If you’re building, buying, or governing AI in healthcare, this is worth a read 👇 https://lnkd.in/eyKHcsx6 #HealthcareAI #DigitalHealth #PhysicianLeadership #HealthTech #Forbes #AIGovernance

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My team has helped health systems with 300+ Digital Health implementations. The 5 things those with the highest patient adoption do differently: 1️⃣ Patients are given access to the tool across multiple channels, well beyond just the patient portal. Yes, it should have a launch point from the patient portal (e.g. Epic MyChart) - but patients should still be able to access it directly from a separate mobile app, web app, SMS, email, etc. Today, we work with health systems who tell us their patient portal has less than 50% patient adoption, or that have patients who don’t like or want to use the patient portal, etc. Through a multi-channel approach, we have some health systems getting 90%+ patient adoption of SeamlessMD. I know you love your “EHR patient portal-only” strategy, but don’t you love patient accessibility more? 2️⃣ Physicians directly promote the tool to patients. Same way that a doctor telling patients to follow a treatment plan drives adherence, it’s true for Digital Health tools too. Even if it’s just 15 seconds to say: “hey, we have this great digital care journey platform to help educate and monitor you throughout your surgery. Patients who use it feel more confident, less anxious and have better health outcomes. My team will tell you more about it” makes a HUGE difference in driving up patient adoption. 3️⃣ Obsess over the adoption metrics and driving them up Every month, every quarter they are looking at which clinical areas have high vs low adoption - and doing something about it when adoption could be better. After 12+ years of doing this, my team has so many best practices and strategies for tackling patient adoption. But sharing those insights is meaningless if the health system isn’t motivated to get better adoption. But those who deeply care about getting results? They use every trick in the book that we know, and they’re getting amazing 90%+ patient adoption. 4️⃣ Tool is standard of care: it’s opt-out (instead of opt-in) The highest performing health systems don’t make things complicated. They keep it simple for both patients and their clinical workflow by promoting and recommending the tool to everyone. The ones with the lowest adoption? They’ll look at a patient and think “they look too old to use Tech” and just assume they can’t and won’t use it. I’m telling you - we’ve had patients in their 80s and 90s use Digital Health and say they love it! Don’t judge. Make it standard of care. Let patients opt-out if they want. But stop assuming. Give patients the benefit of the doubt they can do things. 5️⃣ Keep educating and promoting the tool throughout the entire episode of care Yes you could just promote the tool when you first enroll patients. But health systems who re-promote it during an in-patient stay, and re-promote it at discharge and whenever else possible - always get higher adoption and engagement. *** What would you add?

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There's a new question in every health tech buying cycle that didn't exist 18 months ago: "Is this already on the roadmap of our foundation model vendor?" As we discussed in our 2026 healthcare predictions, we are entering a moment where the end user, clinicians and operators included, can increasingly build software themselves using agentic coding environments. In practice, this shows up when a CIO asks whether a proposed point solution is meaningfully different from what their existing foundation model could deliver with internal prompts, guardrails, and a few weeks of engineering time. This shift is quietly reshaping the competitive calculus. Startups selling into healthcare enterprises no longer compete only with the EHR vendor’s roadmap. They also compete with what a foundation model provider can plausibly ship for that customer, often faster and at lower marginal cost. Importantly, while the moat around building software is eroding, the moat around running software in healthcare is not. Healthcare enterprises are not set up to independently handle deep workflow integration, continuous iteration, reliability at scale, and governance across clinical, legal, and regulatory dimensions. That operational gap is where durable companies are still built. We expect this dynamic to introduce real friction into buying cycles for point solutions with thin moats. At the same time, it expands opportunity for companies with defensible data assets, deep workflow entrenchment, and true platform potential. Artera and Atropos Health are two strong examples from Breyer Capital's portfolio, both highlighted in the article. Special thanks to Brian Gormley for featuring our perspective in today's The Wall Street Journal piece on OpenAI and Anthropic's entry into healthcare. Jim Breyer Daniel Breyer Andre Esteva, PhD Brigham Hyde

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In our latest newsletter, I go deep into why we believe the next three years of healthcare innovation will be defined by two specific trends: Voice Agents and Hybrid AI Care Models. Here is the quick breakdown: 🎤 Amplifier Health (Voice AI Diagnostics): Amit Mehta, Jeremy Barber, and Peh Keong are doing the impossible. They have built a Large Acoustic Model that can screen for multiple medical conditions from a phone call. By focusing on the physical properties of sound rather than just words, they are creating a screening and diagnostic tool that is accessible to anyone with a phone. 🧠 Meru Health (Hybrid AI-Enhanced Care): Kristian Ranta, Riku Lindholm, and Henri Koponen are solving the "efficacy crisis" in mental health. Their 12-week program treats the mind and body together by combining licensed clinicians with biofeedback technology. With millions of lives covered, they are proving that value-based care is the only way forward. The Bigger Picture: We believe the "Golden Age" of healthtech is moving toward a model where AI handled the routine data and diagnostics while humans focus on high-level clinical decisions. Whether it is a voice agent triaging a patient or an AI-enhanced clinician monitoring recovery, this hybrid approach is how we solve for both access and quality. Read the full breakdown of our investment thesis #HealthTech #VentureCapital #AI https://lnkd.in/dqDGBnJF

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Healthcare organizations will spend $231 billion on IT in 2025. Yet most users merely tolerate the software they use. Here's what real satisfaction looks like in healthcare UX: ↳ Sighs-per-minute drop to zero during peak hours ↳ "Where the heck is..." searches decrease by 80% ↳ Mouse clicking sounds are meditative, not frantic ↳ Coffee-to-completion time improves significantly ↳ Shoulder tension measurably decreases during workflows ↳ Users stop googling "how to use [your product]" ↳ Bathroom break delays drop (users aren't avoiding the system) ↳ End-of-shift energy levels remain above survival mode ↳ Software becomes invisible to clinical thinking Real user satisfaction isn't surveyed, it's observed.

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few thoughts on agentic AI sparked by Nabla's recent ambient AI rounds: 1. seeing both newly funded startups and later stage AI scribe startups launching agentic tooling selling into providers and payors. who wins? i would bet on those who already have distribution with hospital and outpatient practices (see Nabla, Abridge, etc) 2. consolidation plays - Blake Madden alluded to this earlier. i had predicted that scribe + RCM tools would bidirectionally partner and then M&A. we are already seeing lots of activity here. i imagine these consolidated entities will also launch agentic tools with a stronger value prop for both hard financial ROI (more revenue) and clinical ROI (less physician burnout). 3. horizontal platform plays - AI scribes partnering with various pre-visit and post-visit vendors that do risk adjustment/RAF (see Nabla partnership with Navina ), clinical documentation integrity, clinical compliance, patient outreach, pre-visit intake, and others. I imagine we'll eventually see lots of M&A here. read more -- https://lnkd.in/eiNadTE9

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Thanks Aaron Ferber! Just finished up a talk at HLTH on "Human Centered Design Principles in the Age of AI". Well attended, and well received. Couldn't have picked a better partner in Aaron Ferber @ Ascension, who has a background spanning startups and design consulting (IDEO) to mission driven health. We covered: 1. Funnels vs. Anti-funnels. Aka don't make patients download an app or you'll lose 70% of them. 2. Give value to get value. Make sure you have a "guest" experience - airlines & ecommerce figured this out long ago. 3. The power of "defaults". Aka when to use opt-in vs. opt-out and how radical a difference it made in say organ donation rates. 4. Test everything. You're wrong. You just don't know specifically how you're wrong until you test. Send your engineers into hospital/health facilities and have the sit in the waiting room for a couple of hours. 5. Using AI for a human touch. I.e. how to personalize at scale, what you know about education or reading level to alter the way you talk to patients. Full video in the next week or two. For now, here's what I said above in video format for those who didn't open this message :-) #HLTH25 and #HLTHUSA

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