Designer in Residence: a new model for design-driven innovation in future hospice care

Background

Hospice care is in a period of change, with shifts towards redefining access and provision, ever-increasing and diversified demand, and advancements in technology transforming current models of care.

Beyond a creative problem-solving activity resulting in product-level or service-level improvement and innovation, Design could help re-imagine alternative scenarios and lead to system-level transitions, hence acting as a strategic agent of change in future hospice care.

Figure 1. Designer in Residence: Co-creating + co-defining system stakeholder map

Aim

The Inclusionaries Lab aim to co-define and co-imagine current and future hospice care as an ecosystem of people, objects, environments, technologies, interactions and narratives of care.

Objectives include;
a) Co-creating a systems map of the current hospice care;
b) Co-defining values and requirements in the current system;
c) Co-imagining new value propositions in future hospice care systems.

Methodology & methods

The Inclusionaries Lab’s approach to future hospice care in this research is informed by principles of System-shifting design; Speculative design; Human centred and Inclusive design; Design framing; Narratives design; and Placed-based approach. Designer in Residence model is adopted as a new innovative method for interdisciplinary investigation, collaboration and co-creation at the heart of a hospice.

Figure 2. Designer in Residence: Co-creating + co-defining current system maps

An innovative collaboration between a hospice and an academic design research centre allows for a team of design researchers to undertake a 12-month residency in a hospice to gain first-hand contextual understanding and to conduct 1) Semi-structured interviews with staff, visitors and patients (N=15); 2) Observations of patients and staff (N=10); 3) Co-define and co-design workshops with all stakeholders (N=2).

Outcome

Three major outcomes are expected:

1. Current and future system maps of hospice as a living system: 1. a) A current systems map of hospice care to help clarify and communicate how the system works; capture narratives, experiences and tensions; and underline strategic areas for future system-level transitions.
   1. b) A future system-shifting map to help identify new value propositions for future hospice care.
2. An Auto-Ethnography Report on ‘Conducting Design Research in Hospice as a Sensitive Healthcare Setting’.
3. A Beta version of a ‘Design Research Lab in a Hospice’.

Figure 3. Designer in Residence: Co-imagining future system transitions

Conclusion

This programme of design research incorporates advanced design principles and for the first time, introduces the innovative Designer in Residence model in the context of hospice care. The outcomes are expected to stimulate interdisciplinary discourse and collaboration and inform research and policy.