By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    benefits of using protein powder to build muscles
    Protein Powder for Muscle Mass: Everything You Need to Know
    December 12, 2021
    changes brought on by blockchain in healthcare
    Technology In The Healthcare Industry
    March 28, 2022
    What Does Core Body Temperature Say About Health?
    August 17, 2022
    Latest News
    Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
    May 16, 2025
    Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
    May 16, 2025
    Choosing the Right Supplement Manufacturer for Your Brand
    May 1, 2025
    Engineering Temporary Hospitals for Extreme Weather
    April 24, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    FDA Approves Diabetes Pill
    May 2, 2011
    Patient Gets Drunk on Hand Sanitizer
    June 20, 2011
    Cultivating Health Improvement
    July 20, 2011
    Latest News
    Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
    May 18, 2025
    The Critical Role of Healthcare in Personal Injury Recovery: A Comprehensive Guide for Victims
    May 14, 2025
    The Backbone of Successful Trials: Clinical Data Management
    April 28, 2025
    Advancing Your Healthcare Career through Education and Specialization
    April 16, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Seeing Is Believing: Infographics Revolutionizing the Patient Experience
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Policy & Law > Public Health > Seeing Is Believing: Infographics Revolutionizing the Patient Experience
eHealthPublic Health

Seeing Is Believing: Infographics Revolutionizing the Patient Experience

Nicole Fisher
Last updated: June 10, 2014 8:00 am
Nicole Fisher
Share
9 Min Read
Emmi Solutions Instructional, Interactive Guide For Taking Warfarin
SHARE

Infographics and visualizations are hugely popular in all cultures, and there is unlimited opportunity to use them in a complex field like health care.

Infographics and visualizations are hugely popular in all cultures, and there is unlimited opportunity to use them in a complex field like health care. However, 15 seconds is all the time an online article has to capture a reader  according to data from Tony Haile of Chartbeat. The data also suggests that people don’t readcontent on the web the way we think they do, as much as visualize it. Health visualizations then, like media, only have mere seconds to get a patient engaged. With such great opportunity for improving health literacy, patient activation and outcomes, better health visualization must be easily digestible, and must engage the reader’s emotions instantly. What BuzzFeed does in the media space, we might find useful for health, too.  According to Devin Gross, CEO of Emmi Solutions, “Images, voice and text are all important parts of creating rich, emotional content that is relevant to individuals experiences. The goal is to bring real interconnectivity to the health space.”

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Pictures can give a patient a complete concept in seconds, where words alone often fall short. Tell a patient, “Don’t eat that next piece of cake, because excessive consumption of cholesterol increases the risk of heart disease and stroke”, and they will either ignore you or hear “Don’t eat cake, it kills you”. That’s neither true, nor encouraging. Visual cues can explain the opportunity for improvement in a more informative, fun and intriguing way.

More Read

Patient Record on Parking
The Case for Patient Video in Doctors Visits: Take a Selfie and Call Me In the Morning
Cancer/Cell Phone Connection Challenged
Why You Should Care About Your Personal Health Record and Access to Your Data
What Are Your Responsibilities as a Cancer Patient Today?
Cliff Diving for Healthcare Innovation
Emmi Solutions Instructional, Interactive Guide For Taking Warfarin

Emmi Solutions Instructional, Interactive Guide For Taking Warfarin

However, to use visualizations successfully – to engage and grab the attention of both the well and the ill – requires really understanding people.  But if done appropriately, real improvements to public health might be possible. As David Spiegelhalter, Professor at Cambridge University in public understanding of risk says, “Often, numbers do not speak for themselves. They are part of narrative, and so there are no correct or objective ways of communicating them as text.”

At London’s recent WIRED Health conference, speakers made heavy use of data visualization to communicate the benefits of using certain technologies in health care and wellbeing. Although that was to an audience of medical professionals, entrepreneurs and media, data and charts could have been replaced with a wholly different narrative and disseminate the same story if need be for a lay audience.

Data visualization is not for everyone though. A crucial mistake in health would be to identify patients as one cohort – especially when they are a group of people suffering the same affliction. Therefore, Infographics and interactive visuals are one piece of the overall patient engagement goal.

Psychology Of A Patient

In a recent Business Insider post, columnist Milo Yiannopoulos asked why data journalism doesn’t always work; at least, not for most people who aren’t “data nerds.” He contends that news providers have forgotten that ordinary people are moved by pleasure and displeasure rather than spreadsheets. This is why money, sex appeal and humor all play major roles in media.

Ironically, many in the health space also seem to forget that patients are also people, and raw stats just won’t cut it. Health communicators must innovate to tell compelling, visual stories beyond the numbers. Or, as Emmi Solutions CEO says, “The dynamic of any relationship and subsequent health-related action come from feeling like you’ve been getting advice from a trusted friend. Learning in a friendly and meaningful way is really an extension of a relationship built on trust.”

Any communication professional will tell you, all people are different. Personality gurus Myers-Briggs split us into 16 broad personality types, describing how people perceive the world and make decisions. Based on analyses such as Myers-Briggs, we know that some people prefer the written word while others will want credible datasets to work through. Older people tend to have the time to want to do their own research and younger people tend to have no problem trading time for simplicity. But as a whole, almost all humans have a desire to connect with and relate to other people.

Emmi Solutions "Plate Method" Learning Tool

Emmi Solutions “Plate Method” Learning Tool

Many charities understand this well, such as Cancer Research UK, which collaborates with good PR agencies to tell trusted stories that tug at heartstrings. Yiannopoulos says that these stories get the most attention in the media because by the end, tears – whether from laughter or pain – are dripping onto the page.

Engage, Play, and Interact

The JBS3 risk calculator, developed by David Spiegelhalter and Mike Pearson at Cambridge University, is a tool to help visually communicate the risk of cardiovascular diseases and the benefits of interventions, whether lifestyle or pharmacological. It’s a good example of how to create engagement through instant feedback. Feedback is important because it contributes to the motivation and the emotional bond between data, good advice, understanding and future decision-making.

In a doctor’s office, the physician can use tools like this to tell a better story to their patients. Providers can more easily illustrate the potential of a different lifestyle choice, and the impact of behavioral changes. It further gives the patient choices, options and a vision of incremental benefit rather than black-and-white outcomes.

US-based Emmi Solutions is a company that provides multi-modal engagement tools that relay personalized, visually oriented health information throughout the entire care continuum, from prevention to surgery to self-care. Using teams of visual and graphic artists, voice artists, script writers and patient focus groups, the company creates content that, in theory, simplifies complex medical information to provide people with information that they can easily understand and respond to.

This idea also allows providers to have more meaningful conversations during notoriously short visits and better explain in-person what is happening, as well as send them home with reference material that they can interact with on their device of choice and when they’re ready to learn. Their results from over 12 years of being in operation prove that this approach does get people engaged and taking action.

On the academic front, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the University of Michigan Center for Health Communications Research have joined forces for “Visualizing Health,”  a project examining how data visualization for risk behavior can be applied. Their premise is that people need to be able to understand and respond to multiple types of health risk information.

According to the RWJF report, once people have information they can understand, they set goals, recognize that risk exists, judge whether the level of risk is acceptable or not, and use that to make a decision among options. As we grow, around the world, to better understand the learning preferences and human behavior that influences comprehension and decision-making, the ability of presentation could have significant impacts on public health. By creating educational materials that allow people to interact in ways that make sense to them, we empower them.

Emmi Solutions Interactive Carotid

Emmi Solutions Interactive Carotid

TAGGED:infographics
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

Do You Grind Your Teeth at Night? Here’s How Night Guards and TMJ Treatments Can Help
Do You Grind Your Teeth at Night? Here’s How Night Guards and TMJ Treatments Can Help
Dental health
May 21, 2025
The Secret To A Confident Smile: Top Tips For Better Teeth
The Secret To A Confident Smile: Top Tips For Better Teeth
Dental health
May 21, 2025
Clinical Expertise
Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
Health care
May 18, 2025
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Health
May 15, 2025

You Might also Like

doctor patient relationship
BusinesseHealthMedical RecordsTechnology

We’ll Have to Get to Know Patients Better

February 18, 2015

#SXSW, #HIMSS13 and Healthcare Innovation

March 9, 2013
Future of Medicine ebook cover
eHealthSocial MediaWellness

Medical Futurist Dr. Bertalan Meskó [PODCAST]

March 11, 2015
oldphone.jpg
eHealth

Free Up Your Phone Lines By Optimizing Your Medical Practice’s Digital Presence

September 23, 2016
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?