The latest edition of the Service Design Work Out in Utrecht addressed the theme of ’Health Care’, or more specifically: ‘what can service design do to help improving care services in hospitals?’.
Jiska de Wit from Utrecht Medical Centre provided an excellent kick off with an overview of current issues the sector is facing. And then, as ususal, we embarked in 3 quick rounds of discussions and brainstorming around 3 specific questions:
1. How to design health care services for consumers who want to be more and more in control?
2. How can hospitals keep improving their services despite the strong pressure on bringing costs down?
3. How can Service Design gain traction in a care world where technological solutions, efficiency and measurable results are traditionally favoured?
Judging on the high spirits of everyone who participated, we definitely touched an area that people are passionate about and really want to contribute to. It was also clear however, that in order to achieve lasting effects in this sector it is necessary to seriously engage with some aspects that are not naturally within the comfort zone of service designers, such as (cost) efficiency and accountability.
STBY regularly organises Service Design Work Out sessions together with 31Volts and Think+Do. We are all active members of the Service Design Network Netherlands. The Work Outs are open for everyone to join, and typically attract a mix of service designers with all sorts of backgrounds and other professionals who are specifically interested in the topic. The sessions aim to explore what contribution service design can make to sectors we could consider ’unusual suspects’ for service design. Sectors where our work may be needed but is not yet fully known or accepted.