ID’s Equitable Healthcare Lab Explores the Role of Design in US Health Systems
June 10, 2024
ID’s Equitable Healthcare Lab, led by Kim Erwin and Meghna Prakash (MDes 2023), has released a sixty-page report illustrating the impact of design in top US healthcare systems.
The report, “The Role of Design in US Health Systems,” highlights the growing, but often unrecognized, work of designers in healthcare. It outlines how twenty-seven health systems have hired, structured, tasked, and measured the impact of designers on their teams.
Map of the twenty-seven US health systems represented in the report
The report features insights from designers and other leaders at America’s top health organizations, including Mayo Clinic, Northwestern Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Kaiser Permanente, among others.
These industry leaders documented 260 projects that demonstrate how designers add value across different areas. The report identified primary and secondary contribution areas for designers, showing the opportunities available for design professionals in health systems.
Contribution Areas
Design helps define and optimize how patients experience the entire health system, from clinical care to administrative services.
Using design to integrate digital technology into all areas of the health system, fundamentally changing how the system operates and how patients experience treatment and care.
Using design to conceive and test new models of care that respond to changes in reimbursement and operating models (e.g., shift to value-based care) or that add capacity and services to the health system.
Using design to shape long-term goals of a health system or service line (strategy) and to explore and execute different pathways to achieve those goals (planning).
Using design to build organizational capacity through systematic training programs or innovation centers, improve employee experience, and challenge legacy practices and organizational norms.
Using design to improve the performance of existing workflows and delivery systems.
7. Reimagining Space & Facilities
Using design to reimagine clinical facilities and amenities, responding to new service line strategies and technologies.
8. On-Demand Workshops
Using ad hoc engagements that orient employees to human-centered design and/or support project teams in creative problem-solving and patient-centered approaches.
9. Clinical & Industry Research
Using design to improve the conduct and people-centeredness of funded studies.
This report represents the first comprehensive assessment of design’s role across US health systems in the field’s twenty-year history. Since Kaiser Permanente and Mayo Clinic pioneered healthcare design teams in 2003-2004, over forty health systems have invested in design capabilities, yet these efforts have remained largely undocumented and difficult to replicate or scale.
A recurring theme emerged from design practitioners: institutional misunderstanding of design’s strategic value constrained design teams’ capacity to drive meaningful change. These findings reveal an untapped potential for design to enhance health system outcomes, creating opportunities for both established healthcare design professionals and new entrants to the field to demonstrate greater impact.
View the full report to learn more about design’s transformative impact across healthcare systems—from realigning healthcare operations with patient needs, to improving clinicians’ ability to deliver high-quality care, and generating new revenue through innovative services.
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