Based on a talk for the Southern Ohio branch of the Project Management Institute (Healthcare group). Many thanks to PMI for their sponsorship. Healthcare innovation has been led by technology providers, almost entirely, over the period we consider relevant to “innovation” (1970’s – current). Innovation has been a supply-side approach, led by information technology (EMRs and Health IT platforms) and medical devices (ranging from user-controllable diffusion pumps to CAT machines). Only recently have clinical services become the focus of innovation, ranging from patient-centered care to new practice models (the ACO and PCMH) and business models. Yet even service innovations emerge from the supply side – just supply-side from inside the hospital instead of industry vendors. The hospital remains a highly hierarchical entity, managed as a top-down coordination of patient bodies in space and time. The patient’s individual desires and personal circles of care are not elicited for service innovation – …
Healthcare Service Design: Co-creating better healthcare experiences
As Design for Care launched in early June, O’Reilly Media kindly coordinated the second webcast on healthcare service design as an integrated practice of empathic design, to a live audience of about 500. The post-webcast video is now online and at your regular YouTube stations: The webinar maps design practices and methods found effective in the most critical contexts in healthcare (consumer, clinical, institutional), illustrated by current cases and design research. Brief design research studies are presented to prompt rethinking of the meanings of care, of information sensemaking at point of care, and the design competencies sufficient to healthcare’s complexity. As designers start to make inroads in the practices of clinical healthcare, they are finding institutions have little context to employ their contributions. In my book research I found very few clinics employing design professionals, unless you count the website staff. Yes, academic researchers and some academic design professionals are …
If disruption is too slow to notice, is it still innovation?
Slownovation in Healthcare? Atul Gawande travels back in time through the lens of the history to uncover biases in sociotechnical practices and finds an archetypal problem: Fixation on technology, while ignoring the simple field fix. He compares two medical practice innovations from over 150 years ago, in the recent New Yorker article Slow Ideas. The invention of general anesthesia allowed doctors to spend enough time working on a patient to actually get the job done. Modern surgery was impossible without it. But nearly coinciding with this invention was the discovery of antiseptic (and thereby sterile technique) by Joseph Lister. Using carbolic acid to clean hands and instruments saved patients the horrible death by infection following a reasonably successful surgery in the late 1800’s. Dr. Gawande asks “why did it take so long for antiseptic practice to diffuse into practice?” Its a good question. Read it. Then solve the puzzle for …
Design for Care | Opening Book Day
As promised, my book Design for Care is in print and available at Rosenfeld Media and Amazon, with some of the early testimonials. So many engaged designers and healthcare innovators have contributed to the book, so on its launch I’m becoming aware of the relationships and communities standing behind me as the book and their work in the book goes forward. The project’s lead designer, James Caldwell of 418QE, established the themes and design language, within the new Rosenfeld Media book design schema developed just in time for our release. Rosenfeld Media is a perfect publisher for this emerging field of healthcare design. They design and produce a beautiful and crisply readable paperback (356 pages and just 2/3 inch thick!). They provide buyers a choice of print AND 3 e-versions, or e-versions only. And they post all the images produced on Flickr with license to borrow and attribute. One of …
