September 30, 2025
Oregon State Health Exchange Fails to Implement Human-Centered Design
Introduction to Oregon State Health Exchange Failure
Oregon rolled out its state health exchange, Cover Oregon, which was intended to simplify the enrollment process for residents in health insurance. However, it instead resulted in a health IT breakdown, as the site didn’t work as intended and left thousands of residents having to submit paper applications instead. This wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. What should have been a step forward in innovation and digital health instead turned into a warning about what happens when technology moves faster than governance and user testing. This failure highlights how critical it is to keep people at the center of design.
The Cost of Poor Project Management & Accountability
Cover Oregon’s issues weren’t caused by a bug crashing the entire system. Instead, there were issues related to poor management, unrealistic planning, weak vendor oversight, and a strained relationship with contractors. Additionally, the system had coding errors that resulted in data corruption, runtime crashes, and an overall degraded performance. These weren’t isolated issues, but rather an overall system failure of designing without a focus on quality or reliability. Unfortunately, the consequences left thousands feeling frustrated, confused, and distrustful of the process.
Furthermore, when healthcare systems fail, they have real-world consequences. For instance, families were left unaware of whether or not they had coverage. Vulnerable patients were left without timely care, and public trust decreased from residents feeling abandoned by a system that hurt them rather than helped. This example shows how quickly technical failures due to the lack of human-centered design can spill into public health and social consequences. Furthermore, without accountability and proper project management, technology that was originally designed to improve access to care can actually become another barrier.
How HITS Could Have Avoided This
Failures are not inevitable in healthcare. They often happen due to a lack of human-centered design and governance. A health IT company like HITS brings both to the table. Through collaborative prototyping, early usability testing, and continuous user validation, HITS would ensure that flaws were uncovered long before launch. This process ensures that every design choice is tested thoroughly in regard to real-world applications and is refined to fit user needs. HITS puts patients and providers at the center, so that solutions are not only functional but also empower end users.
Additionally, HITS also prioritizes governance and accountability. Unfortunately, Cover Oregon collapsed because there was a lack of alignment in goals and a lack of strategic planning. HITS applies strategic planning, change management, and data governance to keep projects on track and ensure that everyone is accountable. This oversight ensures that no vendor or stakeholder is unaware of agreed goals or cuts corners without detection. By combining strong governance with transparency, HITS delivers a leadership framework that prevents small issues from spiraling into high-profile failures.
Importance of Incorporating HCD
Overall, the Cover Oregon exchange didn’t fail due to minor issues. It failed due to small issues that could have been caught early, getting missed and spiraling into a failure that wasted time, money, public trust, and led to thousands facing delays in accessing healthcare. This is why human-centered design is crucial to every project. Systems must be designed with empathy, accountability, and emotional intelligence.
At HITS, we deliver solutions that combine empathy, accountability, and measurable impact so that technology truly serves people rather than hinders them. HITS also understands that design flaws aren’t just technical issues, but have direct human consequences that may hurt families and communities. Therefore, when technology is instead built with empathy and guided by human-centered design, it not only prevents failures but creates functional and empathetic systems that people can trust.
HITS
HITS provides healthcare management services and partners with stakeholders to design health informatics tools that promote safe, secure, and reliable care experiences by ensuring that technology implements empathy, accountability, transparency, and human-centered design from the start. By infusing empathy and emotional intelligence into every solution, we ensure technology enhances rather than replaces or hinders human connection. By combining government expertise with healthcare management, we deliver collaborative, high-quality solutions across military, federal, and commercial sectors. We take pride in our services and settle for nothing other than 100% quality solutions for our clients. Having the right team assist with data sharing is crucial to encouraging collaborative and secure care. If you’re looking for the right team that delivers technology with heart, HITS is it! You can reach out to us directly at info@healthitsol.com. Check out this link if you’re interested in having a 15-minute consultation with us: https://bit.ly/3RLsRXR.