Jonathan Romm Developing a service design lab for future healthcare

My project is about how to meet the demands for innovative patient-centric healthcare services. Due to the complex and interlinked nature of these kind of services and the rapid development of healthcare related ICT platforms and applications, a cross-disciplinary approach of collaboration between various stakeholders on all levels are required. Patients, health professionals and commercial actors will have to be challenged if we are to succeed in this task. The intention of this project is to develop a design lab by using a barticipatory action research by design approach: a shared space, facilitated by designers to enhance design thinking and bring patients, health professionals and commercial actors together to co-design and co-develop new services and the lab itself. As part of that, this project aims to explore the following question:

How may a design lab support co-envisioning (strategic), patient-centric healthcare such that it can be mobilised (tactical), co-created and implemented (operational)?

Secondary research questions:

·      What capacities does service design offer to support patient-centric healthcare service innovation?

·      To what extent can the C3 design led innovation lab be used as a model for other healthcare innovation labs?

·      To what extent does an innovation lab, in a design thinking perspective, have to be physical and embodied?

·      What is the role of the designer in an innovation lab, and what are the materials that they use to “design”?

Related to theme 1 and closely linked to WP3, C3 will establish, explore, and evaluate various relevant aspects related to the design lab as a hospital entity. These could be aspects such as methods, spatial configurations, toolsets, and/or templates that would support the task of engaging cross-functional teams in complex problem solving and new service development (NSD).

The research will focus on three main levels of activities to be supported by the design lab; (i) Strategic level - supporting the creation of visions, logics and mobilisation towards a desired state (ii) Tactic level - creating plans, incentives and new service designs that supports the strategy (iii) Operational level - implementation of the new service and the measures for the evaluation of the desired change.

Expected research outcomes:

New conceptual understanding of how to apply service design in the context of public services and healthcare.
New models for how to create supportive environments for innovation processes in cross- functional development teams.
Methods for handling co-creation in complex settings on and between all levels (strategic, tactical and operational)
New design tools, templates and/or media that facilitate NSD processes in complex settings.

Expected innovation outcomes:

Establish a Design Laboratory during the PhD period at The Centre for Connected Care at the Oslo University Hospital.
Development of service design and health care innovation support for cross-functional teams in strategic, tactic and operational levels.

New service design approaches and methods within the context of human-centric healthcare and public service design. 

Institute of Design / Simon Clatworthy (Supervisor)

PhD started in 2015