UNMC hosted the first International Health Design Thinking Conference in October, drawing visitors from London and a Stanford presenter remoting in from Slovenia, as well as visitors from across the United States.
In addition, a business meeting was held during the conference that launched the new International Society for Health Design Thinking (INSIGHT).
The two events are part of a long-held strategic goal for UNMC, said Interim Chancellor H. Dele Davies, MD, to lead the creation of a global network of health design thinkers who can shape the future of innovative health care.
“The goal is to create a forum for health design thinkers to come together regularly, to exchange ideas, to explore ways to build and improve on human-centered solutions for the toughest problems in health, and to help build the framework by which design thinking products are given back to the public to enhance lives,” Dr. Davies said.
Leila Shepherd, PhD, managing director of the Helix Centre at Imperial College in London, spoke on “Methods for Design in a Health Context” at the event.
“Design thinking is all about putting people at the center of everything, and where is it more important to do that than in health care?” Dr. Shepherd said. “But sometimes, the commercial incentives to do that aren’t there. And, certainly in the (United Kingdom) health care system, it’s tricky for people to understand how best to discover service-user needs and design products and services that meet those needs. One of the reasons Helix exists is to try and bridge that gap and help the (National Health Service) do that better.”
Matthew Harrison, head of design at the Helix Centre, said the group had been looking for others interested in academic health design thinking to build bridges.
“We’ve been doing this for 10 years, so to come over here and see people trying to do similar things, we could learn from each other,” he said. “This is an opportunity to be a lot more external facing and have a community to share ideas.”
Katherine Bravo, PhD, assistant professor in the UNMC College of Nursing and co-director of UNMC Design Thinking, was among the first UNMC faculty to receive design thinking training at Stanford University. Her presentation at the event, “Envisioning the Future of Health Design Thinking,” spoke to the potential of health design thinking and INSIGHT.
Dr. Bravo said the October event’s international focus could springboard UNMC to greater design thinking efforts.
“We have built on the synergy of our interdisciplinary team to really make an impact,” Dr. Bravo said. She said the launched international association would provide new ideas, new opportunities to collaborate and a chance to build on momentum.
“It is about recognizing and zeroing in on where design thinking is demonstrating value,” she said.
Jennifer Kallio, DDS, now at the University of North Carolina’s Adams School of Dentistry, also was one of UNMC’s first design thinking trainers and returned to Omaha for the event.
“We’ve noticed that there are health design thinking groups all over that are kind of siloed, and we’re trying to bring everybody together to move forward, because we know we can do work together.”
T.J. Welniak, MD, associate professor of emergency medicine, was another of UNMC’s early adopters. As co-director of UNMC Design Thinking, he sees “enormous potential” in the timing of INSIGHT and the rapid ascent of UNMC’s own work in health design programming and scholarship.
“There is so much to both learn from and offer the greater health design community through our collective successes, setbacks and everything in between. What an excellent opportunity for UNMC to have a role in kickstarting such a forum while also showcasing the amazing work we are doing here.”
UNMC’s continued collaboration with the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Walter Scott Scholars, who are trained in Design Thinking, and roll out of its McGoogan Library Design Hub were just a few of the local efforts highlighted on the INSIGHT stage.