Here's what I pulled from a project I did about healthcare in Japan a few years ago:
1. Doctors are perceived and perceive themselves so that they are much more paternal. You go to a hospital and wait ALL DAY to get to a doc, and this is accepted and standard. Once there, you accept what they say much more than here. This leads me to believe this would make a healthcare website need to be a bit different. 2. Hospital stays in Japan are average 30 days compared to 2 or 3 in the US. Again, this has to do with the overall paradigm. "Hospital stays are longer in Japan but surgery is only 1/3rd as prevalent, mostly owing to a resistance towards invasive procedures. Nevertheless, patients stick around longer -- an average of 33 days in the hospital -- and are allowed to convalesce there." http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=04&year=2005&; base_name=health_of_nations_japan 3. From the same article: "In Japan, primary care services are often more expensive than specialized care services, an inversion of most countries. Physician visits are often brief, but the Japanese hit the doctor's office 2.5 times more often than do Americans, Canadians, Germans or the English." 4. More about the system here: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/rodwin/lessons.html#III 5. Drugs tend to be over-prescribed: http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/bureaus/eap/factsheets/fs-japan_health_970 731.html I include this because I think you could argue that there's a lot to uncover here that this is merely a *symptom* of. 6. I can't remember why I bookmarked this specifically, but maybe it's got some fodder? http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=332460 ;) Also, I think you could make a basic argument that differences in the way healthcare is funded between the US and Europe and Asia will defacto mean differences in mental model/psychology. Good luck! ................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
