occupational therapy deep dive

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, and always up to something in social good x tech.

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onto today’s topic: occupational therapy deep dive 🩺 

there’s no better way to learn about a problem space than to talk to the people living through it every single day. after my friend, sahil, and i wrapped up a side project to improve exercise form in the gym 3 weeks ago, eliam suggested that we go back to the drawing board and find a close contact as a starting point for this deep dive into a new problem space and/or customer segment. this led us to occupational therapy. 🩻 

i’ve been busy before, but my priorities and limits to stretch my time were tested like no other during this week-long problem space sprint. starting with only 1 direct contact, we ended up taking calls with 20 different occupational therapists working across hospital systems, the nih, and the u.s. department of veterans affairs. i learned a lot about 1) the problem spaces that exist within occupational therapy, and 2) what it takes to execute with high urgency. and wow, I had a lot of fun doing it.

the key problem area i identified was the fact that it’s extremely time-consuming and inconvenient for occupational therapists to collect information on patients’ home circumstances. 🏠️ 

i’m not 100% sold on ot — so i plan to do a few more of these sprints across different customer segments in healthcare and education until something sticks.

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