Health Experience Design 2021

Taking the nod from scientific collaboration across the globe in lightning speed COVID-19 vaccine development, we see the urgent need to break out of the deadly silos that scatter the impacts of design in health.

Quality Improvement is a well-documented discipline and has progressed inter-institutionally due to agreed upon norms and nomenclature. However, Design as a discipline is not measured and progressed within the domains of health and well-being in the same manner. Disparate groups, multi-stakeholder initiatives, communities of practice, graduate education programs, and incorporated organizations exist within this nascent domain, but to date no effort has been made to visually represent their relatedness and the distinctions between them.

At the Design Institute for Health within Dell Medical School, we have created a prototype map of the design in health space, which we invite participants to co-create with us. This map illustrates the landscape of change agent organizations and highlights collaborative opportunities for shaping new paths forward in how people get and stay healthy. We seek to leverage this map and its co-creation process to create momentum to formalize our practice, provoke conversations, bring cohesion to the field, and catalyze change.

Today’s unprecedented times require radical collaboration. We must broaden our view of collaboration beyond our organizations and partnerships to collaborate widely across the entire domain of design in health. The initiatives, institutes and organizations seeking systemic change in health through design must build interconnectedness and collaboration to truly revolutionize well-being.