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Although co-design has made important contributions to practice in many fields, healthcare has only recently employed it for shaping best practices. This paper explores an aspect of medical practice that challenges many hospitals: the decision-making process for ordering urine testing and the use of antibiotics, specifically, in treating Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) and Asymptomatic Bacteriuria (ASB). The case investigates how physicians and nurses make decisions about testing urine for infection and the use of antibiotics. To explore the issue, the researchers conducted three co-design workshops to (1) uncover the medical decision-making process in ordering urine testing and treating UTI and ASB, (2) determine the needs of clinicians as they make such decisions, and (3) collectively design a decision aid that would fit users’ cognitive, emotional and physical needs. The case shows how human-centered design approach led to an evidence-based decision-making tool – guiding clinicians to improve their practices by reconsidering when and if to order urine testing and prescribe antibiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical personnel usually write and design documents that inform physicians or patients about procedures or therapies. Document design, however, requires skills that are not normally applied, resulting in information that is often not used properly. This article describes a project developed by the Alberta Colorectal Cancer Screening Program. The goal was to help patients better prepare for their colonoscopies. The process started with an analysis of the existing documents, and the development of performance specifications based on the literature on legibility, reading comprehension, memorization and use of information, plain language, visual perception, page layout, and image use. The project included an iterative process of prototyping and testing that resulted in 23 design criteria. Each iteration was tested with users to ensure ease of use, completeness of information, and accuracy and clarity to facilitate adoption. The project helped reduce practice variation regarding bowel preparation in the province of Alberta, Canada. This project illustrates how information design can help healthcare organizations provide patient-centred care. Information design helps patients engage in their own caring process, by providing information that people can use, understand and apply. After 15 months of use, the document has been downloaded more than 48,000 times, suggesting a good physician reception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People living with obesity suffer from multiple health issues, including diabetes and mental health problems. Misinformation about the complex nature of this condition greatly affects the way one manages obesity. This results in unrealistic expectations by both healthcare providers and patients. Effective obesity management must be individually tailored for each patient. The objective of this project was to improve four communication tools by co-designing them with patients. A co-design approach was used to improve the efficacy and applicability of the tools through a working collaboration between patients, care providers, and researchers. While most articles describe processes to create shared-decision making (SDM) tools which compare alternative diagnosis and treatment options, few papers describe models to create SDM tools which go beyond showing benefits and risks. In this paper, we describe our process and approach to the re-design of four of the 5As obesity tools. We hope this study provides a valuable model for other teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the quality of patient care, generally referred to as Quality Improvement (QI), is a constant mission of healthcare. Although QI initiatives take many forms, these typically involve collecting data to measure whether changes to procedures have been made as planned, and whether those changes have achieved the expected outcomes. In principle, such data are used to measure the success of a QI initiative and make further changes if needed. In practice, however, many QI data reports provide only limited insight into changes that could improve patient care. Redesigning standard approaches to QI data can help close the gap between current norms and the potential of QI data to improve patient care. This paper describes our study of QI data needs among healthcare providers and managers at Vancouver Coastal Health, a regional health system in Canada. We present an overview of challenges faced by healthcare providers around QI data collection and visualization, and illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of different visualizations. At present, user- centred and evidence-based design is practically unknown in healthcare QI, and thus offers an important new contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the practice of design has changed, design education is still mainly focused on a traditional design approach centered on graphic skills and creativity. Today's design practice, prarticularly when working with social problems, requires designers to broaden their spectrum of skills. These skills hinge on understanding social problems from the perspective of human participants and are aimed at generating knowledge on which to base design decisions and evaluating these decisions with people. However, teaching design in this new scenario is not easy. This article provides a model of how to incorporate social problems into the design curricula to develop the skills society needs today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To design in collaboration with users, speaking and listening are essential. This article shows the process of interviewing people with a communication disability called aphasia. Aphasia is caused by brain damage and affects speaking, understanding speech, reading, and writing to some degree. The focus of the article is on the creation of visual tools to facilitate the understanding of questions and producing answers by people with aphasia. Everything has to be adapted to match their needs: the wording, the types of questions, the way a question is introduced, and the length of the interview, among other things. For every question, specific material was designed to facilitate communication between the person interviewing and the person with aphasia. The strategy was to combine verbal information (oral and written), pictorial information, and movement. The main goal of the interviews was to understand the feelings and opinions of people with aphasia regarding the diagnosis process. The interview results helped identify people's preferences regarding the context in which the assessment takes place, as well as their needs regarding the visual materials used. The project demonstrated that it is possible and valuable to apply a user-centred design approach to the design of the visual material used to assess aphasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although designers use diagrams as an aid to think and to communicate problems and situations in their practice and although some leading institutions have used them in their teaching, many design schools have not yet incorporated diagramming in their programs. This article proposes the use of diagrams to quickly facilitate the understanding of complex problems to design students. It proposes that creating diagrams helps students integrate information gathered from different sources and communicate their understanding to the class. The paper illustrates the concept describing a three-hour workshop with students from medicine and communication design, and analyzing the benefits of using diagrams in the class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article begins by describing a desirable design approach that is only practiced by a few designers today. This design approach is desirable because it responds to a society that suffers from a number of illnesses due to communications and artifacts that do not satisfy the needs of people. The article then proposes the kind of design education that could lead to forming designers within the outlined approach, and defines necessary terms and conditions. Lastly, it proposes recommendations, and the need for a deep reflection on the nature of design and of design education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study describes a user-centered design approach in the area of aphasia. Aphasia is a language impairment that can take many forms, so a particular case provides the foundation for this work. The particularities of the individual with this condition and his social context are key to developing and designing an intervention that supports language use and fosters interaction. This article takes the reader through a research process that results in the production of a board game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Healthcare systems are under high pressure, from chronic disease, and aging populations with their consequent array of issues. Healthcare professionals are asked to deliver better care with fewer resources, increasing efficiency and efficacy. Simultaneously, patients expect more personalized therapies and physicians are discovering the benefits of making patients more active in their own care. This paper outlines the challenge to arrive at healthcare decisions that are based not only on data but also on the patient’s values and preferences. However, helping healthcare to face this challenge requires designers to develop new skills and competences. The paper proposes some general competences that designers need to develop to provide design solutions to satisfy users and healthcare systems’ needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]