OVERVIEW

DESIGN THINKING AND HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN: SPRINGBOARD’S METHODOLOGY FOR PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS

Human Centered Design (HCD) is a specific methodology that falls within the broader framework of Design Thinking.

Our methodology employs both design thinking and human-centered design processes to solve challenges that patients, providers, and healthcare staff face. While there are nuances between these two methodologies, we find that using a blend of the processes allows us to examine the problem more holistically.

According to Harvard Business School, “Design thinking is an approach to problem-solving in which the practitioner seeks to understand a potential product or service’s end user, including their goals, challenges, and aspirations” (Harvard Business School). This approach is highly iterative and focuses on understanding a challenge from all angles—including stakeholder constraints and needs, service requirements, financial limitations, etc. On the other hand, “Human-centered design is a problem-solving technique that puts real people at the center of the development process, enabling you to create products and services that resonate and are tailored to your audience’s needs” (Harvard Business School). In essence, human-centered design focuses primarily on those who would experience the resulting solutions. At Springboard, we center our work on our patients, providers, and staff—often through conducting interviews and observations, and including our stakeholders in the ideation process—while being mindful of the many constraints common to healthcare. In this way, we balance both methodologies by using processes that allow us to focus on our ‘users,’ while also making space for other considerations that could impact solutions and their sustainability.

IDEO’s Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability framework is a design thinking tool that allows designers and non-designers alike to craft a successful solution that is desirable, technologically realistic, and economically viable (IDEO Design Thinking).  

The design thinking process allows us to examine challenges from multiple angles so that we can create solutions that can be adopted by our complex web of stakeholders. To create a viable solution, we follow these design thinking steps:

1. Empathize
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. Test
6. Implement

While we strive to provide more user-friendly experiences to our patients, we know that looking only at the patient’s perspective can hinder our capacity for making the most effective and sustainable change. An intervention that is a great care experience for a patient also needs to be able to integrate easily into the workflows and environments of our providers and staff in order to succeed. By adopting HCD principles, we’ve developed a breadth of work that ranges from care redesign to physical products and service workflows—all with our patients, providers, and staff at the center. As designers, considering this range of perspectives and needs can push us to find unexpected opportunities for creative thinking amidst significant constraints.

In our initial pilot of the Mobility Speedometer at Salem Hospital, we held feedback sessions and interviews—a key part of our HCD approach—and found that the amount of documentation required to keep the early tool design updated felt duplicative and burdensome to staff. So we streamlined the Speedometer to its most critical information. In sharing the Speedometer with other inpatient units through MGB, we’ve faced new challenges—like a lack of wall space in patient rooms—which have pushed us to adapt the tool further to serve these new settings. For us, those iterations are a win because they allow the tool to be used more widely and be more effective in its use. Being flexible to the changing needs of our stakeholders and the constraints of a health system allow us to push projects forward and create new opportunities for innovation.

A DESIGNER’S REFLECTION: WHY DESIGN MATTERS IN HEALTHCARE

The complexities of healthcare may seem rigid for a process such as design thinking–a process that is so iterative and experimental. The healthcare mindset can dissuade from pursuing innovation. However, through intentional practice of human-centered design and design thinking, we can create care experiences that are intuitive and sustainable.

At MGB Springboard Studio, we believe in co-designing solutions with patients, providers, and staff because by engaging those at the frontlines of care, we can create solutions that are meaningful and that understand the culture of how care is delivered. We understand that shifting culture can be challenging and met with resistance. And we hope that with continued education about how we work and what terms like ‘design thinking’ and ‘human-centered design’ mean, that more of our healthcare colleagues will understand and embrace these processes as ways to move closer to our goal: making a user-friendly healthcare system that works better for everyone.

FROM ABSTRACT TO IMPACT

“From Abstract to Impact” is so much more than a tagline to us. It is the very essence of what we do. Every project starts with an idea in an early abstract form. We approach projects with empathy and humility, and begin our process by engaging our colleagues on the frontlines to better understand the intimate details of the challenge from a variety of roles and vantage points. Once we break the challenge down, “from oak tree to toothpick,” we transition to ideating ‘how might we’ solve for it, bringing the lens of feasibility, desirability and viability to prioritize solutions. Importantly, we ask early on what success would look like solving the challenge identified.

While the challenges we are solving are within our own health system, we know the challenges we face at MGB are not unique. We also collaborate with healthcare professionals outside of MGB and across the United States to scale solutions when possible.

SUSTAINABLE IMPACT

The impact of our solutions are repeatable and sustainable. Our aim is to have a lasting impact on care, reducing costs and increasing effectiveness. Here we highlight 4 examples of our work:

Mobility Speedometer

Salem Hospital was the development site of our Mobility Speedometer, designed to help accelerate inpatient mobility. Working closely with nurse champions, the iterations of this intervention led to a reduction of 259 hospital days over the 3 month trial period and was scaled across the hospital’s entire 244 beds. We are now discussing Mobility Speedometer trials with new partners inside and outside MGB.

Hexapod Personal Protective Booth

During the pandemic we collaborated initially with the Newton Wellesley Hospital on developing the Hexapod which resulted in a 97% reduction in PPE usage, increased testing efficiency by up to 354%, and saved the healthcare system $1M+ per year per booth. We were awarded the prestigious Nathaniel Bowditch Award from the Mass General Board of Trustees for the Hexapod solution. The Hexapods were used for up to 3 years to aid with testing until demand substantially reduced. One Hexapod booth was preserved, signed by the team and moved to the MGH Russell Museum of Medical History and Innovation, in hopes there is never a need for it again!

Anti-fog Goggles

The Mass General Hospital ER was our partners in trialing a PPE eyewear innovation that used an anti-fogging polymer to keep PPE lenses clear. Interestingly this was another application of a solution we discovered during the development of the Hexapod. A study published in the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal found the negative clinical care impact of uncoated lenses was 5 times that of the coated lenses.

SheSolves Awards

Now in its second year, the SheSolves Awards provide a platform for female-led teams to develop original ideas to make healthcare more user-friendly for our providers, staff and patients. Each of the awarded teams receive a $25k grant and 12 months of support from our Springboard Studio team. The year of work culminates with Demo Day where teams present their solutions and make a pitch for resources they need to sustain their solution beyond the SheSolves Awards.

TO MAKE HEALTHCARE MORE USER-FRIENDLY

Everything we do serves this purpose. We believe it is at the heart of what drives the effectiveness of new interventions. The more user-friendly something has been designed to be, the easier it is to use which means it will be used more often. Ultimately we design solutions in real-world healthcare environments with frontline providers and patients.