Design thinking is ineffective without thinking designers

I recently stumbled upon this article that focuses on concerns that hospitals in Scotland are not being built to a high enough standard to tackle infections. This underlined my belief of how important good hospital design is today and well into the future. But it also made me wonder with the advent of incredible advancements in technology and innovative processes such as Design Thinking, why are we still seeing stories like this? 

Empathy is the birthplace of Design Thinking

The truth is, Design Thinking processes and philosophies have certainly become more mainstream in recent years. But are we overselling the capability? Is Design thinking living up to its potential?  We’ve all seen articles that say Design Thinking is dead or it’s overrated. Of course there’s always room to improve, but let’s be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water.  In reality, the naysayers are forgetting one of the foundational core constructs of Design Thinking; Empathy! Whatever you’re designing, it’s vital to understand and relate to the reality people face when using your products.  Context is also vital along with understanding emotions, of both a care giver and a patient. For Philips, that means showing deep empathy for patients, their families, clinicians and support staff, we need to walk in their shoes, shadow and observe them as they go about their tasks. We combine this with a deep understanding of the task they are hoping to achieve and look at how this is currently achieved and the context in which they are performing the task. 

That’s why we’ve taken the time to build and strengthen a patient-focused & clinical staff consulting service that helps hospitals and healthcare systems improve patient and staff experience, to drive better outcomes at lower costs.  

To help healthcare systems achieve the points outlined above, we need a healthy mix of people to get involved in the innovation process – I want to ensure we are restoring empathy to healthcare design. No single designer, architect or even team of designers, can ever hope to understand all the facets of a particular subject. For me, it’s about having more than just design thinkers, it’s about having thinking designers working together with healthcare facility planners, technologists, Nurses, Doctors and healthcare administrators. We need insights from engineers, researchers and clinical specialists, from people across the hospital or health system not to mention ecosystem partners and end users to design and deliver positive change.

A Human Centered Approach requires Co-creation

Another crucial aspect of being a thinking designer is getting as close to the action as you can. I encourage designers to embrace radical empathy and immerse themselves in the reality of user experiences. How does a parent feel when they’re finding out their child’s diagnosis? How does a radiologist feel when they’ve got back to back appointments for an entire 12 hour shift? It’s only by rolling your sleeves up and entering into the thick of the action, living and sharing experiences, that you can really empathize and truly understand how to best service those in need. This quest to be where the action is happening isn’t always easy and means our designers develop strong stomachs, and of course one of the reasons they tend to wear black at Philips.

Diversity in thought, mindset and action is critical in designing the future of healthcare

I’ll give you an example of how this works. We design healthcare environments, all the way from a single-room-based-solution to entire hospitals. This doesn’t just involve our in-house design team but also some of the brightest minds in machine learning, artificial intelligence and medical technology. We’re fortunate to also have team members who are clinicians, former CIOs or CEOs of hospitals, former chief nursing officers, heads of cardiology or other departments, plus a team of more than 100 doctors from around the world who augment our knowledge. With such a rich knowledge base we can tackle issues from multiple angles. All of this is achieved with a combination of design thinkers and thinking designers who take a true human-centric approach. It truly excites me to work with the best and brightest staff to define and design the future of healthcare.