The Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework is a way of understanding user behavior by focusing on what people are actually trying to achieve, rather than just how they interact with a product or service. At its core, JTBD helps uncover the deeper motivations behind choices – the "job" someone is hiring a product or service to do in their life.

In the healthcare space, this could mean understanding why a patient chooses urgent care over their primary doctor, or what motivates a nurse to adopt a new workflow system. Each of these decisions reflects a job to be done – a specific outcome the user is trying to accomplish within a certain context.

So what defines a job in this framework? It’s not just a task or behavior. A job is a goal someone has, often tied to progress in some area of their life or work. For instance, a patient managing diabetes might not simply want to track their blood sugar – they want to feel in control of their health so they can live independently. That outcome is the real job.

Why JTBD is uniquely valuable in healthcare

Unlike many commercial sectors, healthcare involves highly emotional, complex decision-making – often under stress. That complexity makes it harder to identify what people genuinely need, even when they express it. JTBD offers a structured lens to go deeper, uncovering unspoken motivations that drive action. And in healthcare, this clarity is key to effective innovation.

JTBD is particularly useful for:

• Health system marketing: Understanding what motivates patient engagement beyond surface-level demographics.
• Clinical product design: Aligning features to the real work clinicians need to get done.
• Strategy and innovation initiatives: Setting priorities based on what jobs are most important or underserved.

For example, a fictional health tech startup once thought their mobile app’s value was in the seamless tracking of exercise. Applying JTBD revealed a different insight: patients were actually “hiring” the app to reassure themselves that they were still healthy after surgery. That mental comfort – not just the data – was the real job. The team refined their features accordingly, ultimately improving both adoption and satisfaction.

Understanding healthcare through the JTBD lens leads to solutions that are built around human intent – not assumptions. And in doing so, it brings clarity to an industry that often struggles with complexity and misalignment.

One of the biggest challenges in healthcare is complexity. From managing regulatory compliance to balancing patient expectations, teams are often stretched across competing priorities and unclear goals. It’s no surprise that innovation efforts can stall – not due to lack of effort, but because the focus is diffused.

The Jobs To Be Done framework helps healthcare teams simplify their strategy by shining a light on what matters most: the outcomes people are trying to achieve. When those outcomes become your North Star, product roadmaps, experience designs, and innovation portfolios become clearer and more focused.

JTBD organizes decision-making around real human goals

Instead of starting from the question "What can we build?" JTBD asks, "What job is the user trying to get done?" That simple shift turns a vast range of possibilities into a targeted opportunity set. For health organizations, this might mean reassessing which services they offer, or how their digital tools are structured.

Consider a fictional example: A hospital’s patient portal was originally designed to consolidate records, appointments, and billing in one place. But usage was low, and frustration high. By conducting JTBD-informed research, the team discovered that patients were actually trying to feel reassured they wouldn’t miss something important about their care. Based on that understanding, they reworked the portal to prioritize notifications, care pathways, and human support – reducing complexity and increasing usefulness.

Benefits of applying JTBD to simplify healthcare

• Reduces feature bloat: Teams can prioritize building only what's essential to completing important jobs.
• Improves communication: Everyone from marketing to product can align around clear, user-centered goals.
• Avoids assumption-driven design: With JTBD, decisions aren't based solely on persona data or usage stats – they're grounded in genuine needs and context.

This is especially powerful when designing for clinical workflows or tech-enabled care delivery, where the stakes are high and users are often pressed for time. JTBD brings clarity by asking, "Is this feature helping someone do their job faster, easier, or with more confidence?" If the answer is no, the team knows where to cut.

For organizations looking to improve healthcare strategy, JTBD offers a filter that zooms in on what actually drives value. From applying JTBD in health product development to rethinking communication in health system marketing, the framework gives teams permission to simplify with intention and purpose.

As healthcare continues to move toward more patient-centered and efficient systems, JTBD acts as a bridge between people’s needs and the solutions designed to meet them. It lets teams innovate without overcomplicating – and that’s where real transformation begins.

Real-World Applications of JTBD in Healthcare Environments

One of the most powerful ways the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework shines in healthcare is by helping teams reframe product and service development around real human needs. Whether you're part of a hospital innovation team or designing a clinical app, JTBD gives you a clear window into the underlying reasons people seek care or use tools—not just what they do, but why they do it.

Instead of designing around features or processes, JTBD encourages designing for goals. This difference is especially useful in complex settings like hospitals, where patient care, workflows, and technology must work together efficiently and empathetically.

Examples of JTBD in Hospitals and Health Tech

• Inpatient monitoring tools: Instead of building an app to simply display vitals, teams can ask, “What job is the clinician trying to get done?” A common JTBD might be, “Help me confidently monitor my patient so that I notice signs of decline early.” Understanding this leads to designs that prioritize timely alerts, intuitive displays, and mobile access.
• Discharge planning: Hospital administrators often aim to reduce readmissions. But from a patient’s point of view, a job might be, “Help me leave the hospital with clarity so I can manage my recovery at home.” Solutions developed with JTBD might include simplified instructions, follow-up reminders, or direct nurse access post-discharge.
• Telehealth platforms: A health tech team creating a virtual care solution might consider this job: “Allow me to get reliable answers about my health without disrupting my daily life.” This leads to streamlined scheduling, accessible user interfaces, and tools that make virtual visits feel personal and secure.

Each of these examples breaks away from the feature-first mindset and instead focuses on delivering value by aligning with users’ goals. Fictional or not, these examples reflect a truth: identifying clear jobs to be done can help simplify healthcare innovation by guiding teams to create better, more intuitive solutions that serve patients and providers alike.

Ultimately, applying JTBD in clinical product design or health system marketing aligns teams around what really matters—making progress on behalf of the people they serve.

Designing Healthcare Around the Real Needs of People

Healthcare strategy often emphasizes patient-centered care, but translating that into practice can be complex. The JTBD framework helps bridge this gap by giving teams a way to define and prioritize solutions based on the outcomes patients and care providers are actively seeking. Instead of assuming what patients need, JTBD helps uncover the specific progress they hope to make in real-life situations.

At its core, JTBD brings human-centered design to life with concrete direction. Whether you're redesigning an app, launching a new service line, or improving workflow, JTBD helps focus innovation on what truly matters to the user.

How JTBD Simplifies Patient-Centered Solution Development

1. Clarifies the outcome patients are trying to achieve: A diabetic patient might not just want blood sugar data – the job might be, “Help me feel in control of my health without constant stress.” Recognizing this leads to solutions that combine accurate monitoring with emotional support and ease-of-use.

2. Aligns cross-functional teams: From product managers to clinicians to marketers, everyone can work from a shared understanding of the patient’s job. This alignment simplifies decisions and keeps teams focused on the right problems to solve.

3. Informs smarter clinical product design: By building around human motivations, solutions become more intuitive and accessible. If the job is, “Help me understand what my symptoms mean so I know what to do next,” then AI-driven symptom checkers, smart triage tools, or nurse chat interfaces may emerge as part of the solution.

4. Improves the overall patient experience: When solutions match people’s real-life goals, not only do satisfaction ratings go up—so do outcomes. JTBD helps teams identify “emotional jobs” like reducing anxiety or feeling heard, both of which are central to positive experiences yet often missed in traditional design processes.

Through consistent use of the JTBD framework, healthcare organizations can not only simplify innovation workflows but also create patient-centered care models that feel more responsive, empowering, and human. From outpatient support tools to hospital discharge protocols, JTBD makes it easier to truly build with people in mind.

And when patients feel understood, innovation becomes more than just new technology—it becomes real progress.

How to Know It’s Time for JTBD

Choosing the right frameworks for healthcare innovation can shape how efficiently your team works and whether your solutions gain traction. The Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework is especially useful when you're facing complexity, ambiguity, or misalignment in your process. But how do you know when JTBD is the right tool to apply?

Key Moments to Leverage JTBD in Healthcare Strategy

1. You’re developing a new product or service but unsure where to focus. If your team is overloaded with features or ideas but lacks a clear direction, JTBD helps distill what users are actually trying to achieve. This clarity improves design priorities, resource allocation, and team alignment.

2. You’re struggling with low adoption of a tool or process. Say you’ve rolled out a digital care platform, but usage is low. JTBD can uncover latent jobs or emotional needs—like “Help me trust that I’ll be supported if something goes wrong”—which, once addressed, drive adoption and engagement.

3. You want to improve the patient experience in a measurable way. JTBD can define experience goals from the user’s perspective: not just “complete a visit,” but “feel confident in my diagnosis after the visit.” This shift enables healthcare teams to tailor services that align more directly with what patients value.

4. You’re navigating multiple stakeholders. In systems with layers—clinicians, administrators, marketers—JTBD brings shared vocabulary and focus. It anchors discussions in practical human goals, not just department-specific metrics.

5. You’re simplifying complex solutions for broader impact. When healthcare tools cater to too many edge cases at once, they become bloated or difficult to scale. JTBD helps you concentrate features around a well-defined target job, making solutions both more focused and easier to use.

In short, if you’re looking for a smart way to reduce complexity and align efforts across cross-functional teams, JTBD offers a clear path forward. It serves as a lens for evaluating what matters most—whether you’re revising clinical product strategy, refining hospital services, or adjusting health system marketing campaigns.

Applying JTBD at the right stage of your innovation journey helps ensure that each step—from insight discovery to design choices to rollout—stays firmly rooted in human need. That’s where simplicity meets strategy, and healthcare innovation truly thrives.