Since 2011 I’ve wanted to take on a healthcare service design project and last year I finally made it happen. We’re nearly at the end of a year long pro bono project to redesign a holistic health center in Manhattan. It’s been the most challenging project of my life. It all started with trying to find a client. We spoke to a number of clients including hospitals and addiction centers, but we ran into issues with HIPPA and finding the right fit for our vision. We wanted to have full purvey over all aspects of the design from the physical space to technology to the way the staff interacts with patients.

Once we found a great client, we conducted initial secondary research into their target audience and the landscape. We then conducted ethnography, becoming secret shopper patients of the practice. It took a ton of work on the part of the wonderful staff to make this happen without any of the practioners blowing our cover.

The ethnography uncovered patient expectations and gaps that we mapped in an exercise along with the competitor’s capabilities and the patient journey. We presented this to the client and then ran a blueprint session with them. After the blueprint session, our client was understandably having trouble making sense of the vast amount of solutions we uncovered.

This led us to explore value planning, and while we did not employ the full method we used a light version that mapped the solutions to value for the business, user, and by feasibility. This helped our clients focus on the key solutions to move forward with. We’re now in the process of rebranding the healthcare center and developing a number of solutions for them. They’ve already implemented a few of our suggestions which is exciting to see. 

It’s been a great learning experience and has definitely taken longer than we ever imagined. We’re wrapping it up this quarter and the full case study will come soon so stay tuned!