Architect led, hospital design can be characterized as a process whereby “users” are consulted to create an efficient, functional, and affordable design solution. Rarely, however, do we consult in a meaningful way, with those for whom the hospital is actually designed: patients and families. Instead, ‘users’, typically staff and clinicians, serve as proxies who speak for the patient experience during design.
What would happen if instead of starting by asking staff “what do you need”, we began with patients and asked them, “how do you feel?” What might we learn if we started by asking patients and families to share their feelings and emotions experienced during their care journey? What emotional context might we unpack that would offer new insights to drive design?
Ian Sinclair’s research with cancer patients shows that by embracing patient empathy, patients’ fears, hopes, and aspirations can reveal new insights that can become salient design drivers, never before imagined for the spaces that patients and families ultimately occupy.
Applying a process that maps the emotions that patients feel along their treatment journey may help us, as designers, to uncover breakthrough drivers of design.
Learning Objectives:
- Learn about new design drivers that may translate into bold, breakthrough results
- Learn how to augment traditional approaches to healthcare design
- Learn an easy to implement approach to patient-focused research
- Learn which healthcare facility type is a logical starting point for empathy-based design
Take Home Message:
Ian’s presentation will illustrate how embracing empathy as a design driver and ‘putting ourselves in the shoes of patients’, may reveal never-before considered human touch points that can lead to breakthrough design possibilities for healthcare facilities.
Conférencier(s)
