Some health technologies are well considered, thoughtfully designed, have been iteratively improved over several cycles of continuous improvement and focus on the needs of users from an extensive understanding of their behaviours. Others, quite frankly, aren’t.

Bringing something new into your practice, whether it is technology based or not, requires change. So the first and perhaps the most obvious thing to recognise is that you have to manage that change if you want it to be successful. Is now the right time?

You know what the tech product it right? So is it a medical device or not? Does it have a CE mark? So should you use it? You do have to do some due diligence on new products, but the good news is that for fairly well established products, some people have done the work for you. It’s worth looking at Orcha and therappy – whilst these don’t provide endorsement for the product, they do give some detailed consideration of the features, security and cost and so help you understand if this is the right thing.

Whilst this might not seem like the most exciting topic, the security of the data your tech product may produce or store is really important. Imagine how you would feel if a patients personal data got into the hands of an email phisher or fraudster – all the security measures organisations like the NHS have in place are to protect the data to ensure this doesn’t happen and that the people who use its services know their data is held safely.

So you’re keen to get involved in the design of a tech product? Great. More tech would be likely to succeed if designers got users involved from day 1 – your input is crucial. But it has to be more than your voice, because you need representation of all the users and consider the needs of tech-super savvy right through to the technophobes.