Last week I traveled to the Florida Keys for a much-needed family vacation. And…while we started with an absolutely bang, swimming, snorkeling, fishing, and tubing, relatively quickly, that bang was my head hitting a semi-submerged metal pole somewhere in The Gulf.

Alas, what started as an amazing day with my family turned into an emergency, wherein I was rushed to the hospital (and then to another bigger hospital) to receive stitches and some CT (and MRI) scans of my head.

While I am so happy to be alive, mostly due to the amazing care I received in the hospital(s), as a designer, I also couldn’t help but notice how disconnected much of that care was/is to actual human health.

So…as a way to start a conversation with YOU, I decided to write about it, below…

— Justin Lokitz

I spent a few days in two hospitals between Key Marathon and Miami last week. The care was excellent. Honestly, it was WAY (x10) better than I expected. The people were sharp, attentive, and kind. When something went wrong, the system showed up.

But…after a couple of nights inside it, a different reality set in. The system works…just not for what you think. Hospitals are built to stabilize you, to manage risk, to keep you from getting worse. They DO NOT seem to be built to help you get meaningfully healthier.

I felt that gap quickly…and I’m here to report on it (and also so happy to be alive!).

Start with sleep. Across both hospitals, I couldn’t get more than an hour of uninterrupted rest. Someone comes in to check vitals. Another administers medication. Then a shift change brings a new set of questions. It repeats all night. No one is doing anything wrong; each person is doing their job and doing it well (and with patience and care). But seemingly no one is coordinating the whole experience. So sleep—the thing my body needed most to heal—got quietly dismantled by the system meant to support me (and you).

Then there’s food. Meals arrive on time, but without much thought beyond that. There’s little connection to your condition, your recovery, or even basic nutritional alignment. In my case, as someone who sticks to a plant-based diet, it felt less like care and more like delivery. And…as someone who has studied and designed for nutrition-for-health, that matters more than it seems. Food shapes inflammation, energy, and how quickly your body repairs itself. Yet inside the hospital, it barely registers as part of treatment.

The deeper issue shows up with antibiotics. They’re necessary. They prevent infection and save lives. But they also disrupt your gut in a major way. What follows is telling. Instead of rebuilding that system, you get surface fixes—acid reducers, sugary drinks passed off as ginger ale (see the image above): quick relief, no real repair. We now know the gut plays a central role in immunity, mental health, and long-term disease. In the hospital, it’s an afterthought.

Put this all together, and a pattern emerges. Care is fragmented. Doctors, nurses, nutrition, and pharmacy…each operates in a tight lane. They’re effective within those boundaries, but from the patient’s perspective, it feels disjointed. There are constant interruptions, competing priorities, and no one is responsible for the full arc of your experience. The system is (or at least seems) optimized in pieces, not as a whole.

Which leads to a harder truth. Health isn’t the objective. Managing illness is. Hospitals are exceptional at diagnosing problems, intervening quickly, and reducing immediate risk. That’s what they’re designed to do. But the things that actually drive recovery, like sleep, nutrition, stress, and microbiome balance, sit on the sidelines.

That’s not an accident. It’s a design choice. And it explains why you can receive great care and still feel like the system is working against your recovery.

The opportunity here is clear. Imagine a hospital that protects sleep instead of interrupting it, where schedules are coordinated, and unnecessary disruptions are removed. Imagine nutrition as part of treatment: personalized, intentional, tied to your condition. Imagine that every intervention comes with a plan to repair what it disrupts, where antibiotics are paired with gut restoration as standard care.

This doesn’t require new science. It requires better design. Better coordination across roles. Systems that optimize for the patient, not just the process. Tools—including AI—that can orchestrate care instead of fragmenting it.

Right now, the system is built to keep you alive. That’s not the same as helping you heal. And once you see that clearly, it’s hard to unsee how much better this could be.

I’d LOVE to keep this conversation alive. If you have specific experiences (like mine) and/or you’re designing (or interested in designing) solutions to the problems stated above, please email me, post/comment on this on LinkedIn, and send it to your friends.

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