International experts highlight importance of design thinking in healthcare innovation

Healthcare in rural communities in Uganda, care for the dependent elderly, more human waiting rooms and improved care for women that need mammograms were some of the examples given by speakers at the Biocat workshop How Design Thinking can improve my business: Successful Innovation in Health held Friday 24 January at dHUB. The event focused on how to improve healthcare through design thinking, a new methodology that uses the principles of design to get patients involved in the process of defining new products and services.

Biocat invited specialists Humberto Matas (Designit), Roberta Tassi (Frog), Lekshmy Parameswaran (Fuelfor), Anna Cucurull (A piece of pie), Pär Blanking (Borders Crossing) and Gary van Broekhoven (Istituto Europeo di Design, IED and openIDEO) to explain the methodology of design thinking and its successful application in several real case studies.

Since early 2000, design thinking has become a key tool in fueling business innovation. It is a discipline that uses the designers’ sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.

In the healthcare sector, design thinking plays a critical role in designing products and services that meet patients’ real needs. Although there have been huge breakthroughs in diagnosing and treating disease over the past 50 years, care delivery systems have changed very little. In fact, new tests, treatments and procedures have made the healthcare experience increasingly complex for both doctors and patients.

This Biocat workshop falls under the framework of d·HEALTH Barcelona, the flagship program of the MOEBIO talent-development initiative, which, over eight months, trains and guides young entrepreneurs in the hospital innovation arena from idea to business.

More detailed information on the event is available in the press release (27/1/2014).