Can a patient experience be “delightful”?

This week we decided to set some lofty goals for ourselves. As we grow our team, it’s time to set some highly exciting milestones. Allowing everyone to surpass their talent towards our collective north star.

One of the proposed goals about patients benefiting from our product reads like this:

“to provide them with a delightful, relieving experience".

Several of our team members experienced a life-changing disease first hand, so we tend to reflect on our own experience and design the product we wish we had. Our colleague explained the term “relieving” by telling us the story about his mother. When she was seriously ill with cancer, not knowing if he had done all he could to help her. He thought, if our product had existed then, that would have been relieving.

No stone is left unturned.

Should you come accross our product as a patient, we aim at keeping you and your healthcare team informed about how to access your best possible treatment. Considering the medical therapies that stood the test of time, and the latest scientific discoveries that your local physician might otherwise haven’t heard of just yet. We equip experts with the technology to watch the science specialising in your case, always.

Perhaps you were worried about not being told the whole story or not fully understanding what’s happening.

Maybe you couldn’t help but feel like you had to uncover all potential cures as a duty toward your family.

Perhaps you crave being able to forget reality when you enjoy time together, and keep your dignity. When your friends and family look at you, you want their eyes to see the human, not the patient — so you didn’t want your partner to drive the search and understanding of your healthcare journey when you felt too tired to do so yourself.

In meeting with Coremine Vitae case team, you can let go of those rocks that you carried.

That is a relief.

But, Delightful?

Yes, in fact, I want people using our product and services to get a delightful experience. They are going through enough suffering as it is. We want to offer them a beautiful moment. We want them to feel a warm, positive emotional connection as they come in contact with our product and services. They deserve it.

Is “delightful” the proper term to use, though, when someone comes to us because of having a rare form of cancer and their treatment stopped working? Or can someone’s experience be “delightful” when they’ve just learned that their life is going to be turned upside down forever, because their body keeps attacking it’s own cells and no one knows why?

Maybe we should keep it simple.

Aim at offering Excellent Transparency.

To give them a Friendly, Comforting, Trustworthy journey.

More time.

Yes, letting them know that they can ask again at any time, should they have forgotten to say something during the meeting. Or maybe they are ready to obtain clarifications now that everything has “sunk in”. I wish people would never feel like a burden in meeting with the healthcare system.

Well designed Digital Health solutions give healthcare teams more time and resources to focus on the human.

Our lofty goal is, in fact, “seeing the human in the patient”.

I’m curious about what others think. If you are reading this as a healthcare professional, a digital health innovator, as a patient or a patient’s relative yourself — can and should patient experiences be “delightful”?