Transforming Healthcare: Trust, Technology, and User-Generated Experience in the AI Era
I’ve always been obsessed with the interplay between technology, design, and the human experience. As a systems thinker, I’m constantly trying to connect the dots within the health ecosystem, asking the question that drives design thinking: “How might we?” This curiosity often leads me to consider why, as a community, we’re so comfortable forming parasocial relationships with influencers, or seeking advice in Facebook groups, yet hesitant to bring that same openness and trust into aspects of healthcare.
There’s a tension in how we engage with information. We readily trust non-experts for lifestyle choices but become cautious when it comes to applying that paradigm to health infrastructure. And yet, there’s immense potential to blend these two worlds. What if AI could harness both clinical expertise and user-generated content that is the lived experiences of everyday people? What if we could integrate the insights of those navigating their own health journeys into the design of our healthcare ecosystem?
This post explores how AI, paired with design thinking, can bridge the gap between traditional healthcare system design and the rich, often untapped knowledge that comes from user-generated content, or what in healthcare we know as consumer voice, lived experience, and expertise. In doing so, we have the chance not just to improve healthcare, but to fundamentally reshape how we approach trust, knowledge, and innovation within the system.
The Potential for AI and User-Generated Content to Bridge the Gap
AI, especially in the form of AI agents, can bridge the gap between expert knowledge and consumer experience by combining both to create a more comprehensive and accessible health ecosystem. These technologies can analyse vast amounts of clinical data to offer evidence-based recommendations while simultaneously tapping into user-generated content - such as patient experiences shared on forums, apps, or digital health platforms.
Imagine an AI agent embedded within a healthcare app designed to help people manage chronic conditions like diabetes. This AI agent doesn’t just provide clinical advice based on standardised treatment plans - it can also pull from a database of experiences shared by thousands of other patients managing the same condition. These real-life stories include insights into how people adjusted their exercise routines, the emotional challenges they faced, and the strategies that helped them manage their symptoms and wellbeing day-to-day. Crowd-sourcing information and possible solutions from the ‘end users’ - those who have a commonality of experiences and humanity.
For example, if a user reports a common side effect from a new medication, the AI agent could immediately pull both clinical research on the side effect and relevant stories from other patients in the system who dealt with the same issue. It might suggest, based on real user feedback, that some people found relief by adjusting the time they took their medication or pairing the treatment with specific lifestyle changes. The AI could then deliver this information in a personalised way, blending professional guidance with lived wisdom and storytelling.
By amplifying these user-generated stories, the AI agent doesn’t just provide a cold, clinical response - it offers a more human perspective that can help patients feel supported and understood. This combination of clinical data and real-world experiences can lead to better, more personalised care.
Design Thinking: A Proven Pathway for Lived Experience in Healthcare
For years, design thinking has embraced the idea of lived experience, placing the user at the centre of the research and design process. This methodology has shown time and again that when we build solutions with users in mind - when their experiences, challenges, and needs guide the process - the resulting product or service is not only more effective but often emerges as the right market fit far more quickly. In healthcare, where precision and personalisation are critical, human-centred design has been used successfully in both patient care and profit-driven innovation.
Take, for example, the work done in patient experience design, where healthcare systems have applied design thinking to improve everything from hospital layouts to digital patient records. These projects aren't just about efficiency - they’re about humanising the system, making sure that the tools, services, and environments created are responsive to real, lived experiences. The results are often a more intuitive, accessible healthcare experience.
In this way, AI, AI agents, and lived experience can follow the same principles that design thinking has laid out. Just as human-centred design starts with the user and works backwards to build solutions that meet their needs, AI agents can amplify user-generated content and lived experience to enhance healthcare knowledge. In fact, this integration could serve as a natural extension of what design thinking has already proven to be effective: centring the user’s voice at the heart of the design process leads to better outcomes.
In parallel, we are already seeing the power of non-traditional knowledge sharing through social professional networks like LinkedIn. On these platforms, professionals regularly publish their latest research papers, white papers, or photos from talks - not just to share their individual achievements, but to amplify the knowledge, systems, and peer networks they engage with. This is a form of lived experience in its own right: experts using digital tools to build collective understanding, and to push the boundaries of how knowledge is shared and consumed.
The acceptance of platforms like LinkedIn shows that we’re comfortable with more informal, yet highly impactful, modes of sharing expertise and lived wisdom. This openness to non-traditional knowledge dissemination provides a pathway for AI to do the same, blending professional expertise with lived experiences to create a richer, more inclusive healthcare knowledge base.
By applying design thinking to AI in healthcare, we’re not entering uncharted territory - we’re building on a foundation that’s already been proven successful within the healthcare context. Lived experience, when combined with AI’s ability to process and synthesise vast amounts of data, can create an even more personalised, responsive healthcare system. The “influencer” voice, or the real-world experiences of individuals managing chronic illness or navigating treatment, becomes a valuable part of the healthcare knowledge base. This approach reflects the same user-first philosophy that design thinking champions, offering a safe stepping stone to move from the abstract into the practical.
This is why the integration of AI and lived experience isn’t a leap into the unknown but rather a natural evolution of proven methodologies. It can help guide the healthcare system through the complexities of incorporating user-generated content and AI, making this transformative shift feel less like a disruption and more like a thoughtful progression.
Overcoming Community and Institutional Hesitation
Hesitation around integrating AI and user-generated content into healthcare isn’t confined to institutions. It runs deep within our communities and personal behaviours, revealing an intricate relationship with trust. Consider how we approach medical advice: we might casually ask for deeply personal health recommendations in a local Facebook group, yet when faced with a more significant issue, we meticulously research and seek out the "best" specialist in our city. This contrast highlights an inconsistency in how we navigate the healthcare system, oscillating between crowdsourced wisdom and expert knowledge - depending on the situation, the stakes, and our sense of risk.
This isn’t an anomaly. It mirrors how we interact with information and trust in other parts of our lives. In the world of social media and consumer behaviour, we routinely lean on user-generated content - whether it’s trusting a product review from a stranger or taking lifestyle advice from an influencer we’ve never met. Yet, when it comes to healthcare, that same behaviour doesn’t always carry over. We become more cautious, sceptical, and hesitant. This split reveals something critical about how we, as individuals, hold complex and sometimes conflicting ideas of trust, especially when our health is on the line.
But the hesitation isn’t just about healthcare institutions needing to change their approach to AI and user-generated content - it’s also about us, as a community, rethinking the way we engage with health information. Ultimately, we are the end users of the healthcare system, and our trust or lack of it shapes how innovations are adopted and sustained. If we hold too tightly to old hierarchies of knowledge and gatekeeping, we miss the opportunity to democratise healthcare in a way that is more inclusive and attuned to our own experiences.
Healthcare is, at its core, an ecosystem. And as a systems thinker, I see that systems are made up of people. People who create the trust that holds these systems together, but who are also responsible for reshaping and transforming them. This is where we find ourselves now, at a turning point. The rise of AI in healthcare offers not just a technological shift, but a human one. We have the chance to broaden the scope of healthcare to include voices and experiences that are often left out, particularly those from underrepresented communities who are too often excluded from traditional healthcare structures and design.
This moment calls for us to rethink not just how healthcare operates, but how we interact with it. By embracing AI, lived experience, and user-generated content, we can build a more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable health system - one that serves and reflects a more diverse user base and not just a few. This isn't just about advancing technology- it's about transforming the very core of healthcare, where system design, trust, technology, and the human experience drive true innovation.
If you're interested in exploring how technology and user-generated experiences can enhance trust and innovation in healthcare, or how your organisation can integrate or strengthen these principles into your own practices then reach out via info@dialecticalconsulting.com.au or contact me via LinkedIn.
