Tremendous thanks to Dorthe Boe Danjborg for presenting to us on Thursday 25th January.
This was an interesting webinar describing the use of participatory design to build a technological solution in response to a change in policy. The policy change or problem was “how to support women and families discharged from hospital within 4- 6 hours of uncomplicated childbirth?” Dorthe investigated this in her PhD completed in 2015.
Participatory design enables researchers and service designers to discover and understand:
- What patients & consumers really need and want in a solution, versus what we (researchers, service designers) assume or think they need
- What clinicians really need and want versus what we assume or think they need
In essence the participants (consumers / patients, relatives, clinicians and researchers) are all actively informing the design of the solution – they are simultaneously learning from each others perspectives about what they need and want in a technological solution. In this case the solution was an app with which mothers and families could use to communicate with the hospital for that week after birth.
Over 30000 people have now used the app, and it has also been applied to additional specialties.
Have a listen. it’s a great investment in time…
The webinar was recorded and is now available on the COP resources page: https://telehealthvictoria.org.au/resources/cop-developed-resources/cop-webinar-resources/