Ubie Inc. is a company that aims to advance the healthcare industry through various businesses, including the introduction of Ubie Symptom Checker, which guides users to appropriate medical care simply by inputting their symptoms. As their presence as a platform continues to grow, how exactly are they incorporating a design perspective into each of their businesses?

Satoru Murakoshi | Ubie Inc., Ubie Product Platform / Product Designer

As a product designer with a wide range of experiences in production companies, business companies, startup management, and consulting firms, Satoru led experience design for financial institutions’ DX strategies at Accenture Corporation before joining Ubie Inc. in 2021. He is currently challenging himself to connect people to appropriate medical care through the power of design.

Miki Imada | Ubie Inc., Ubie Pharma Innovation Communication Designer

After working as a creative director in a business company and a branding producer in a production company, Miki joined Ubie Inc. as a BI development and promotion specialist at Ubie Pharma Innovation.

The Ubie platform for achieving appropriate medical care

── First of all, please tell us about Ubie Inc.

Satoru: Ubie’s mission is to guide “access to the right care at the right time”. We support patients in receiving appropriate medical care by providing the symptom search engine Ubie, where they can search for related diseases and find suitable medical institutions after obtaining relevant information. It is used by over 7 million people monthly.

We also provide support to healthcare professionals through the medical institution service package Ubie Medical Navi, which helps improve the quality of medical care and reduce their workload. Additionally, we provide information to consumers and medical institutions that contribute to disease and treatment awareness, which in turn supports early and appropriate medical consultations and medical practices. By connecting these stakeholders in the healthcare industry through the platforms of Ubie and Ubie Medical Navi, we aim to lead the entire industry towards appropriate medical care and improve its quality.

── What do you prioritize to achieve the ideal healthcare?

Satoru: We particularly emphasize the importance of prompting patients to seek medical attention as soon as possible and creating communication with physicians that leads to healthcare.

The patient’s action of seeking medical attention is crucial as the starting point for a series of behavioral changes leading to appropriate medical care. To encourage this action, it is necessary to provide patients with relevant information.

It is important to create a situation where patients have some knowledge about their symptoms when they visit the examination room. Instead of solely listening to the doctor’s perspective, if patients can ask questions like “Is it possible that I have this disease?” or actively participate in the discussion, it can lead to a form of communication where physicians and patients work together to find solutions.

── Indeed, it is rare for patients to actively ask questions to doctors in hospitals, and there seems to be a tendency to rely on the doctor’s opinions.

Satoru: Originally, there is informed consent, where doctors provide appropriate medical information, and patients make medical decisions after agreeing to it. However, recently, there has been a shift towards shared decision-making. This approach involves patients having a certain level of information and discussing with the doctor to jointly develop a treatment plan and make decisions. It aims to eliminate the information gap between doctors and patients and enable both parties to have conversations from the same perspective regarding medical actions.

Ubie Inc. also considers this state as ideal. To bridge the information gap, it is important for patients to have medical knowledge and for doctors to obtain information about their patients. We are exploring ways to support this and establish a cooperative relationship between doctors and patients based on certain standards.

Transforming the reality of examination rooms into deep communication spaces

── Ubie Inc. not only focuses on patients but also engages with various stakeholders such as healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical companies. What kind of interactions are taking place with each of them?

Satoru: For example, in the organization called Ubie Customer Science, which interacts with medical institutions, members from various professions regularly visit hospitals and clinics. We not only visit locations in the Tokyo metropolitan area but also travel to regional areas to meet with physicians.

The essence of the hospital and clinic business lies in two aspects: how to attract patients and how to provide a high-quality medical experience to patients who visit” A high-quality medical experience includes being able to view the patient’s medical history immediately upon entering the examination room and having the patient’s information presented in a clear and easy-to-understand manner, making it easier for physicians to make judgments. We continuously engage in dialogue and strive for improvement based on these factors.

── What kind of feedback do you receive from doctors in hospitals and clinics?

Satoru: We have doctors at Ubie Inc. who design the questionnaire content, and we receive various feedback such as “It would be better to ask this question if it is considered relevant to this disease” or “It would be better to phrase it this way.” 

Additionally, we sometimes observe the entire process from reception to the examination room. Since Ubie Medical Navi is a product that involves the entire operation from reception to examination, understanding the actual environment is crucial. In the field, we observe aspects such as the placement of displays, the posture of interacting with patients, and the ratio of time spent examining patients versus reviewing the questionnaire.

── Satoru, you are currently responsible for product design in the pharmaceutical business, but I heard that you were previously involved in the Ubie Symptom Checker. What insights did you gain?

Satoru: I realized that patients are unable to articulate what they want to convey. Most of the time, they enter the examination room without any preparation and speak in the order of what comes to mind when asked. In this way, it is impossible to provide enough medical information doctors need. I experienced the difficulty of conducting deep communication in the examination room.

That’s why I strive to educate patients on “what perspectives to have and how to express themselves effectively to convey information to the doctor,” and encourage patients to actively seek information themselves.

── What is necessary to prompt patients to seek medical attention?

Satoru: It is important to make patients think that they have an idea of what might be wrong with their body and provide information in a way that facilitates that. Suppose they believe that seeing a doctor will help them make a judgment. In that case, it is crucial to provide as much information as possible to help them realize their suspicions and encourage them to take action by saying, “I saw something like this on the internet…” and conveying it to the doctor.

Miki: Currently, doctors are struggling with how much they can intervene when patients cannot obtain information properly, which can lead to worsening symptoms. We want to provide a means to connect both parties through our company.

Utilizing design management insights to promote patient-centricity

── You also collaborate closely with pharmaceutical companies, don’t you?

Satoru: Traditionally, there has been a distance between pharmaceutical companies and patients due to the involvement of doctors. Even if we create disease awareness pamphlets, we couldn’t directly hand them to patients. On the Ubie platform, we accumulate information from individuals who could potentially be patients, and we believe that one of the values for pharmaceutical companies is the ability to provide information to consumers through information provision.

Miki: We also support the design of communication when pharmaceutical companies are disseminating information externally.

── What kind of awareness do pharmaceutical companies have regarding these issues?

Miki: We have heard voices saying that it is difficult to promote patient centricity within their organizations, which Ubie Inc. also advocates for. While they agree with the concept, they struggle with connecting it to business benefits and understanding how it contributes to revenue generation. It seems that they are facing challenges in aligning it with their business operations.

To make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to promote patient centricity internally, we recently announced the Patient Centricity Assessment, which is a metric to measure the level of realization of patient centricity. Assessing the level of realization is a difficult task, but without a metric, it would be difficult to know how to proceed. Therefore, we propose using this assessment to gauge their progress.

Satoru: In addition to the Patient Centricity Assessment, we also hold a regular conference called the Ubie Pharma Summit specifically for pharmaceutical companies to share information about patient centricity. 
Some aspects are difficult for individual companies to communicate, and it can be challenging to spread the concept from one department to the entire organization. I believe that by providing a platform for pharmaceutical companies to come together and discuss what they can do to achieve patient-centricity, we have taken a significant step forward.

── Connecting the greater purpose with business is indeed a challenging theme.

Satoru: Interestingly, I feel that it is similar to connecting design and management. While I believe that patient-centricity is something that companies should embrace, there will naturally be people within the organization who question how it translates into tangible numbers. It is necessary to define how it can be translated into business outcomes and align it with the overall business activities.

To achieve this, it is important to understand the corporate culture of each company and work together within the organization to cultivate that culture. The Patient Centricity Assessment includes categories such as culture cultivation and optimization of organizational activities, which incorporate the perspective of how to spread it. In that sense, I feel that it is closely related to the theme of “connecting design and management.”

Be the guardian of user experience to support business growth

── In terms of supporting the promotion of patient-centricity, it seems that Ubie Inc. approach to connecting design and management could be informative. How does Ubie perceive design in the first place?

Satoru: We believe it is about deeply engaging with human psychology. Understanding the various variables that lead to decision-making and behavioral changes, and thoroughly examining the mechanisms in which decisions are made and behaviors are transformed. 

For example, there are a certain number of people who clearly need to change their treatment, but they may not recognize it as the right time. Understanding the mechanism of how they self-rationalize is crucial to ultimately providing appropriate medical care.

The focus should not only be on patients but also on how doctors interact with patients and the kind of questions they ask.

── What challenges do you face in achieving Ubie’s unique design?

Satoru: Ubie Inc. is a flat organization where everyone, including designers, is involved in business operations. Because of the strong drive to advance the business, there is a difficulty for designers like myself to adopt a business mindset.

We have a deep understanding of design and is closely aligned with management, which means that it can potentially have a negative impact if not used properly. Despite this background, it is important for designers to always be conscious of taking a user-centric perspective and to be the guardians of user experience. Designers must not lose sight of the question, “What value can we provide to stakeholders such as patients and healthcare professionals?”

The corporation is in a growth phase, and that’s why designers must be vigilant and strongly embrace the mindset of growing the business and improving the user experience.

── In such an environment, what do you keep in mind to maximize the power of design?

Miki: To generate explosive power as a company, we emphasize thinking about how we can make it feasible. While it is important to review and improve in detail, the ability to produce innovative ideas as a startup requires an artistic mindset. Since such thinking tends to be avoided in general business, it is believed that there is potential in that area, and Ubie wants to challenge it further.

Satoru: I have always had the theme of connecting design and management, and I am challenging myself to bring about an impact where designers can contribute to business growth while maintaining a user-centric perspective.

Personally, I believe that achieving the creation of mechanisms that induce behavioral changes in patients is the realization of Ubie’s concept and will also lead to value creation for stakeholders. Furthermore, by sharing the insights gained from this process with pharmaceutical companies and deepening their understanding of patients, we can have a greater impact on the industry.

── Thank you very much. Finally, please tell us about Ubie’s future prospects.

Satoru: Ubie Inc. has changed so much since I joined two and a half years ago. The product variations and the scale of the platform have grown significantly, and there are signs that the entire business, which has been running individually optimized, is now connecting the dots and forming a line. We are entering a phase where we will expand that line into a surface. Now that it is possible to elevate the patient’s user experience to the platform experience, I believe that designing at Ubie is the most exciting timing ahead.

　

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Ubie Inc.