Email a Friend
Print Article
Design Thinking May Change Your Hospital Experience
By Denise Mann, MS
WebMD Guest Blogger
Oct. 28, 2009 – Doctor. Nurse. Physican assistant. Lab technician. Interior designer?
Yes, you read that last one correctly. Designers are increasingly becoming important members of your health care team, and they are helping to change the way that you receive medical care in some very innovative and creative ways.
It’s called “design thinking,” and it is aimed at changing your health care experience by changing the environment where you receive care. It helps take the fear and anxiety out of the hospital environment by making things friendlier, brighter, and easier to navigate.
“The health care team of the future has to involve designers,” says Nicholas F. LaRusso, MD, director of the Center for Innovation & SPARC lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The SPARC lab is working to re-create and reshape the entire patient experience with the help of a cadre of designers. LaRusso discussed his experiences at a General Electric Healthymagination conference in New York City.
In Rochester, where the Mayo Clinic is based, designers are ingratiating themselves into the community to learn what members need in terms of their health care and how they feel about their own health. Armed with this type of information, the designers seek to break down barriers by changing and softening the environment, redesigning exam rooms, simplifying the appointment check-in process, and increasing patient education.
“Designers and design thinking are a critical component of our team,” LaRusso says. “The value of design and design thinking has been fully embraced by our institution and the demand for the designers services are exceeding capacity,” he says.
It’s a marriage made in heaven, LaRusso adds.
“Physicians are evidence-based and solution-driven thinkers and this has pluses and minuses,” he says. “We often move to solutions before considering all potential approaches, but designers slow us down and help us think more broadly about framing the question and exploring a wide array of potential approaches.”
The result of this union? Improved communication between doctors and their patients and better health care delivery, he says.
Gary Kalkut, MD, MPG, the senior vice president and chief medical officer at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, agrees. The design thinking approach starts with seeing things through the patient’s eyes and going from there, he says. “At our hospital, I tell staff to physically walk patients to where they need to go as maps and directions can be confusing.” Such efforts humanize health care and help take fear and anxiety out of the hospital experience, he says.
SOURCES:
Gary Kalkut, MD, MPG, senior vice president and chief medical officer, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx.
Nicholas F. LaRusso, MD, director, Center for Innovation & SPARC lab, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
General Electric Healthymagination conference, New York.
WebMD Guest Blogger
Oct. 28, 2009 – Doctor. Nurse. Physican assistant. Lab technician. Interior designer?
Yes, you read that last one correctly. Designers are increasingly becoming important members of your health care team, and they are helping to change the way that you receive medical care in some very innovative and creative ways.
It’s called “design thinking,” and it is aimed at changing your health care experience by changing the environment where you receive care. It helps take the fear and anxiety out of the hospital environment by making things friendlier, brighter, and easier to navigate.
“The health care team of the future has to involve designers,” says Nicholas F. LaRusso, MD, director of the Center for Innovation & SPARC lab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The SPARC lab is working to re-create and reshape the entire patient experience with the help of a cadre of designers. LaRusso discussed his experiences at a General Electric Healthymagination conference in New York City.
In Rochester, where the Mayo Clinic is based, designers are ingratiating themselves into the community to learn what members need in terms of their health care and how they feel about their own health. Armed with this type of information, the designers seek to break down barriers by changing and softening the environment, redesigning exam rooms, simplifying the appointment check-in process, and increasing patient education.
“Designers and design thinking are a critical component of our team,” LaRusso says. “The value of design and design thinking has been fully embraced by our institution and the demand for the designers services are exceeding capacity,” he says.
It’s a marriage made in heaven, LaRusso adds.
“Physicians are evidence-based and solution-driven thinkers and this has pluses and minuses,” he says. “We often move to solutions before considering all potential approaches, but designers slow us down and help us think more broadly about framing the question and exploring a wide array of potential approaches.”
The result of this union? Improved communication between doctors and their patients and better health care delivery, he says.
Gary Kalkut, MD, MPG, the senior vice president and chief medical officer at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, agrees. The design thinking approach starts with seeing things through the patient’s eyes and going from there, he says. “At our hospital, I tell staff to physically walk patients to where they need to go as maps and directions can be confusing.” Such efforts humanize health care and help take fear and anxiety out of the hospital experience, he says.
SOURCES:
Gary Kalkut, MD, MPG, senior vice president and chief medical officer, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx.
Nicholas F. LaRusso, MD, director, Center for Innovation & SPARC lab, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
General Electric Healthymagination conference, New York.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment