DESIGN THINKING FOR HEALTHCARE
WHAT IS DESIGN THINKING?
Design thinking is an innovative problem-solving process that focuses on the people we serve not just the process through which the solution is derived. According to IDEO, “Design thinking encourages organizations to focus on the people they’re creating for and leads to human-centered products, services, and internal processes. The core of design thinking is getting actionable and knowing your questions. It’s about simple mindset shifts or ways of asking questions differently—a new way to look at problems.”
HOW DESIGN THINKING HELPS HEALTHCARE
In healthcare, navigating an organizational complexity requires higher levels of innovation and improvisation than needed in times of disruption. To thrive through disruption, it serves us well to think like artists who always think possibilities not problems.
With design thinking, we must begin with empathy:
- What do our patients and their families need?
- What does a consumer need before they become customers?
- How do they interact with us?
- What is their experience?
- What do our team members, staff and physicians need?
- What is the experience of our customer during their visit with us? (i.e. The interactions, the communication, the aesthetics, the process flow…)
- How easy is it to do business with us? (i.e. Scheduling an appointment, answering the phone, getting a follow up call…)
Then we co-create with our customers a new vision, navigate ambiguity and uncertainty, look beyond the tried and tested, innovate new ideas, and balance creativity and constraint.
The prototyping allows us to move fast into actions instead of brainstorming and continue to refine afterwards.
The process equips healthcare teams with the skills necessary to apply the concepts and practices used in the creative process to improve your patient experience, their work environment, organizational performance and results.
