Challenges for design researchers in healthcare

Abstract

Design research in healthcare can be demanding. We report on eight challenges that designers and design researchers face when working on healthcare projects. We conducted four workshops with design researchers active in healthcare: six PhD candidates, a mixed group of thirteen design researchers, twelve design students, and eight design practitioners. Participants shared critical events from recent projects and reflected collaboratively to identify common challenges across different design approaches or disciplines. An analysis of the workshop materials resulted in eight themes of challenges, divided into three clusters. The first cluster, challenges in practice, includes (1) conducting fieldwork, (2) involving end users, and (3) dealing with sensitive situations. The second cluster, managerial challenges, includes (4) managing relations, (5) building understanding, and (6) communicating value. Finally, in the third cluster, generic challenges, includes (7) attuning to time and financial restrictions and (8) establishing rapport. This overview can contribute to design education and practice by helping both novice and experienced designers recognize and anticipate potential hurdles when engaging with the complexities of the healthcare environment.

Telemedicine: Is It a Tool for Orthopedics?

“…Telemedicine can benefit from its intersections with various areas of design, as design for health [ 23 ] and design thinking methodologies [ 24 ]. There is a need for user-friendly graphic interfaces, which can be coupled with methodologies of interaction design [ 25 ] and UX (user experience) [ 26 ], going through stages of research, information architecture, prototyping, and user tests.…”

Lessons for Employing Participatory Design When Developing Care for Young People with Cancer: A Qualitative Multiple-Case Study

“…As the deeply rooted cultural differences pose challenges, special attention should be given to highlighting the value of PD to health care stakeholders. 47,48 Future recruitment strategies for using PD in an AYA setting could focus on identifying effective locations, where AYA care professionals, AYAs, and designers are based. In addition, financial and politically involved stakeholders could be approached at an early stage to hasten the implementation process.…”

Re-thinking health through design: collaborations in research, education and practice

“…Although design has a long history of working with healthcare, traditionally, such collaborations have commonly utilized design expertise largely in a service capacity, focusing on distinct artefacts (e.g. medical devices), positioned at a project's end (Groeneveld et al 2018) or concerned with environments in the early project stages (No€ el 2017). For example, architects are involved in the planning of healthcare facilities while industrial and visual communication designers work on specific healthcare products (e.g.…”

“…surgical tools or signage) (Chamberlain and Craig 2017). The role that design plays in these situations is often brief, disconnected from the full range of participants and limited in impact (Groeneveld et al 2018). As design researcher Peter Jones (2013, xv) notes, 'healthcare design does not yet fit into the conventional clinical organization'.…”

“…While design and health have a long history of working together, these collaborations have often been transactional in nature, cursorily positioned at the beginning or end of projects, with little opportunity for meaningful and sustained engagement (Groeneveld et al 2018;No€ el 2017). We propose that design offers a powerful range of theories, practices and ways of thinking to meet existing and future healthcare needs.…”