ZoCo gathers Ohio health leaders to tackle shared healthcare challenges
Ohio’s healthcare innovators are confronting a persistent reality: promising technology only creates value when it works for clinicians and patients. That means designing around real workflows, adoption barriers and the people at the center of care.
More than 30 healthcare professionals from across Ohio's health care systems, digital health companies, and startups gathered in Columbus on July 17 for an invite-only roundtable focused on one thing: working together to solve the healthcare industry's toughest problems.
Hosted by ZoCo, a Columbus-based healthcare-focused UX and research consultancy, the event marked the company's first local executive roundtable dedicated exclusively to healthcare. Rather than featuring presentations or keynote speakers, the gathering centered on facilitated discussions where participants shared challenges, lessons learned, and practical insights with peers facing similar issues.
Common Challenges Across Healthcare Innovation
Despite representing different organizations and products, ZoCo Founder and CEO Lacey Picazo noted that many attendees face the same obstacles.
"Clinical workflow always wins."
"My buyer isn't my user."
"Getting someone to use the product is still harder than building it."
"Each table had different companies and products, but many of the same underlying challenges," Picazo wrote in a recent LinkedIn post. "Healthcare isn't just hard because it's complicated...but because it's deeply human."
The event’s conversations underscored a familiar reality for health technology companies: success depends as much on understanding clinicians, patients, and day-to-day workflows as it does on building innovative software.
Serving Ohio's healthcare ecosystem
While the company has hosted roundtables for product leaders in multiple cities over the years, this healthcare-focused gathering reflects its continued investment in Ohio's healthcare community.
ZoCo’s work centers on closing the gap between what healthcare organizations build and what users adopt. Health systems, providers, and digital health companies across Ohio already turn to ZoCo when a well-built product isn't getting used as expected.
This roundtable extends that work into the local leadership community by bringing clients, peers, and friends in Ohio's digital health ecosystem into the same room. By creating opportunities for healthcare executives to openly discuss shared challenges, ZoCo is fostering cross-sector collaboration that accelerates innovation across the state's healthtech ecosystem.
What it means for Ohio
Ohio's healthcare innovation ecosystem continues to gain national attention, thanks to its combination of world-class health systems, research institutions, startups, and established technology companies. But maintaining that momentum requires more than groundbreaking ideas; it depends on bringing the people behind those ideas together.
Events like ZoCo's healthcare roundtable create opportunities for leaders to exchange lessons learned, identify common challenges, and build relationships that extend beyond a single discussion.
As Ohio's digital health sector continues to grow, these connections strengthen the state's reputation as a destination for innovation while supporting the development of healthcare technologies that improve care for patients and providers alike.
Going forward, the roundtables will remain exclusively healthcare-focused, creating a dedicated space for the leaders building and shaping Ohio's digital health ecosystem to connect, share, and solve problems together. Interested in joining the next one? Request your spot on the waitlist at zocodesign.com/healthcare-invitational.
