HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE DESIGNED IN DUNDEE NETWORKING EVENT WEDNESDAY 18TH NOVEMBER 2015

Health & Social Care Designed in Dundee is a new initiative that aims to harness the talents and aspirations of the city, embedding design thinking in health and social care services.

Initiated by Professor Jean Ker of the School of Medicine, and facilitated by Professor Mike Press and Taylor Stillie of

DJCAD / Open Change, the evening aimed to create the foundations for a series of events to be held throughout 2016. We devised a one hour workshop that focused participants on the following questions:

1.    What are the challenges in Healthcare? 2.    How do I innovate/develop/make a change?

On the evening of 18 November 2015, twenty six people from across Dundee met for a networking event at the Shrink To Fit bar in the city centre. These guests represented a broad range of professional interests - NHS Tayside, the School of Medicine, social enterprises, V&A Dundee, Creative Dundee, DJCAD, Dundee City Council, University of Dundee and BioDundee.

Health & Social Care Designed in Dundee is an initiative that aims to embed design thinking within innovation in the city’s health and social care provision. It brings together health and social care practitioners, centred at Ninewells Hospital, together with design specialists from DJCAD and business. One critical aim is to broaden the group out to include the wider creative and business sectors, and to work with social enterprises and community organisations. This first networking event was intended to lay the foundations to build this broader creative alliance.

The networking event was an opportunity to bring together a grouping of interested individuals, and pool their diverse expertise and perspectives in defining critical health and social care challenges, together with proposing solutions. We used techniques from Service Design to lead participants through a process that progressed from problem defining, through ideation to mapping a proposed new service design.

Our check in included a kit to make a name badge, a complimentary drink token and a check in sheet to help initiate conversation at the tables.

People clearly came in a positive frame of mind, with the expectation of networking and being challenged.

Equally important was the expectation of being inspired and developing new ideas that can be taken forward.

A speed dating exercise to introduce people and break down formalities.

We had exclusive use of Shrink To Fit a popular Dundee bar with a playful environment to help spur creative thinking. Flexible seating and some magic whiteboard helped to transform it into a highly effective group working space.

Brainstorming at each table was followed by affinity mapping to select an issue to focus on. The emphasis was on defining pain points in current service provision rather than tackling mega-challenges such as ageing population, privatisation, etc.

What are the key pain points in current health and social care service

provision?

We used Rip + Mix, a design ideation method developed by Deutsche Telekom, Berlin and  a research team from DJCAD, University  of Dundee. The method involves ripping + mixing characteristics from an existing product or service to create a new product or service - in a fast and intuitive way. The method works equally well in small teams or large groups.

Can you design a new service that alleviates

the pain points?

Experience Mapping lays out the different routes and points at which users become aware of and connect with the service– especially at the points when they come directly into contact with it. Identifying these points and highlighting interactions, helps to reflect on how to engage with people and take the idea further.

Use Experience Mapping see your work through the eyes of the people

receiving, benefitting or funding your service.

Each team reported back on their process and outcome.

Group 1 - What’s App Doc - an on line in-touch system for users and providers

Group 2 - A Day in the Life - one day training for healthcare  students to enhance person centred  care. Students  would  spend a day with patients and family - both healthy and illness events ( i.e.pregnancy and  dementia) to understand the experience and barriers to good care.

Group 3 - Concierge service for staff and patients to ensure handover and care on the  hospital  journey

Group 4 - Using technology to enhance more  joined up care - internet based rather than intranet. Patients control information about their health and care. Cloud based which can be password protected (building on antenatal care approach).

Group 5 - Doctorgram enabling healthcare professionals to share experience in an easy to use social media platform, based on the engaging and interactive platform, instagram. (Worksheets for Group 5 not photographed)

Twitter hashtag #hsdid enabled participants to record their responses to the process and capture emerging ideas.

The Check Out  provided a very clear steer on what people wanted in future: In answer to What’s next? …

Can we do this again but with a specific topic? Take back to own service and try similar approach with service users. Would like to take some ideas forward or at least keep talking. Working on my own communication especially med/student cooperations. More meetings. Take forward ideas and develop. More of the same! Innovate! Another session! More sessions, longer, focussed.

The Check Out  provided a very clear steer on what people wanted in future: In answer to What’s next? …

Meet again. Reflection - application of thinking in workplace. Keep going forward together regularly. To continue focusing on inclusion and how it can progress. Use these tools and techniques for future work. Contact some of my team mates. Action! Lots of thinking. More interactions. New initiatives. Find a way to turn some of this into reality.

So what did the networking event achieve?

The value of networking was highlighted in many of the comments made on the Check Out sheets. Bringing together diverse specialisms, ages and backgrounds was clearly valued and contributed to rich discussions which drew on these varied perspectives.

Service design tools have considerable potential to be applied in this field, offering a means of harnessing diverse expertise in a collaborative creative activity. This short event revealed a rich seam of shared interests, enthusiasm and expertise with considerable scope for development. Some of the ideas generated are quick wins - e.g. ‘A Day in the Life’ training for healthcare professionals.

An appetite for further action from those present. Participants saw value in taking this forward in a number of different ways: refining some of the ideas generated during the evening, applying these methods to the specific challenges facing particular teams, more regular events of the same type. In short, colleagues want this type of creative collaboration to be turned into concrete action.

UNESCO City of Design provides us with an opportunity to use design thinking as an inclusive tool to involve patients, carers, medical practitioners, designers and others in reshaping health and social care in our city and region. On one evening we demonstrated how we can practice healthcare innovation in a pub. The challenge is to take this forward, involve more people and practice healthcare innovation in more of the pubs, clubs, schools, community centres and places of worship in Dundee.

Open Change is a design-led organisation that helps people do the things they want to do,

better.

Photography by Taylor Stillie. Thanks to Josh Kilimanjaro and the team for the space and service.

Contact: mike@openchange.co.uk