reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the copyright holder. Application for permission should be addressed to the publisher. ISBN 978-1-927184-36-3
Written and edited by Stephen Reay, Justin Kennedy-Good, Reid Douglas, Emme Jacob, Byron Thornhill, Eden Short and Josh Munn
Located inside Auckland City Hospital, the Design for Health and Wellbeing (DHW) Lab is designing better healthcare experiences for patients, families, and staff. A collaboration between the Auckland District Health Board and AUT’s Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies, the DHW Lab was set up to develop products, services, systems, and experiences for the improved health and wellbeing of all hospital users. What makes the DHW Lab a unique initiative, particularly for healthcare in New Zealand, is its emphasis on human-centered design, which is about designing with hospital users. All projects undertaken through the DHW Lab are guided by the belief that the user’s voice is integral to a meaningful design outcome, since the intimate knowledge they have of a given service, product, or space – how it looks and feels to them – is key to meeting their needs and improving their experience.
The DHW Lab is designing
better healthcare experiences
with patients, families, and staff.
Quick Mockups
Workshops
Annotating Photographs Role Playing Interviews Observations Surveys
The scope and scale of the DHW Lab’s projects at Auckland City Hospital continue to grow. Each project, whether it is addressing the future vision for the Grafton campus or wayfinding through the hospital, is a human-centered collaboration that aims to make the healthcare environment more welcoming, safe, and intuitive for a wide community of users. We use a variety of strategies throughout the design process, to better understand the problems we are solving. For example:
Interdisciplinary
Prototyping
User-Centered
Improve
Experience
Innovative
solutions
Learning/
Knowledge
How
Outcomes
The lab enables designers to consult on wide range of projects in fields such as product, graphic, and spatial design. Students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels engage with the hospital through the lab, and have access to the real-world context of healthcare. All the work conducted through the lab is viewed as research, contributing to wider body of knowledge around design and health.
Student Portal Lab
Design Consulting
DHW Lab Website
We have embarked on a journey to discover how a design studio can work in a hospital environment, close to people and the problems we are trying to solve. Beginning as a blog to help document the original vision of how we might set up a design studio in the hospital, dhwlab.com has become a place to showcase the best of what we do and keep our followers up to date.
The structure of the DHW lab as a consulting outfit, student portal, and research platform has evolved over time. The launch of our new website in May 2015 was significant in helping to clarify to others who we are and how we work; while at its core, remaining a regularly updated blog for people to see what we are doing.
The Design for Health and Wellbeing Lab held a collaborative symposium (9th December, 2015) showcasing how design has been quietly growing in Auckland City Hospital.
The symposium was open to all hospital patients, visitors, Auckland DHB staff, AUT staff and students, and other industry stakeholders. This was an opportunity to bring together a wide range of interested parties to help exchange and develop ideas and to contribute to the future of design in health for Auckland.
Presentations were given by:
Andrew Old Emme Jacob Eden Potter Tineke Water Eden Short Emma Maddren Richard Worrall Reid Douglas Jennifer Loy Suzanne Cross
Valuing Users’ Voices
Practicing Communication Design Designing Communication
Valuing Children’s Voices Design for Wayfinding Building a Collaboration
Design for Cognitive Impairment Designing Healing Environments 3D Printing the Future
Innovation in Complex Environments
The DHW Lab supported the research theme Designing Better Health and Wellbeing Environments, and is a key component of the development of a collaborative interdisciplinary network of design for health and wellbeing research across AUT.
This research Network was supported by funding from AUT’s strategic Research Investment Fund, in late 2014, for research that has strong potential, over time, to bring national and international recognition for research excellence and leadership at AUT.
What is the right way to deliver care? The road to recovery is compromised by situations, interactions, or procedures in an environment that doesn’t support the wellbeing and rights of individuals resulting in patient vulnerability and loss of dignity. Health services need to provide environments that are both therapeutic and restorative. When people are unwell they are particularly vulnerable due to the constraints of their own capabilities. The addition of invasive healthcare treatments, shared space and the uncertainty of health outcomes, can easily cause patients to feel at risk of violation. There is a growing awareness and public recognition of the value of the improvements being made through patient-centred design and co-design. It has become increasingly popular in organisations, as these design-led methods can bring innovative and transformative solutions to business, with the most significant transformation being recognised in healthcare.
research into how design can be integrated within health environments. Fundamental to this approach was user-centred design, in which patients, families, and medical staff are part of the interdisciplinary and collaborative design process so that the value of the design reflects real needs rather than assumed needs. The projects undertaken through this research programme were led by interdisciplinary research collaboration including Auckland DHB project leads.
Principal Investigators team Dr Steve Reay (Art + Design) Dr David White (Engineering) Dr Daniel Shepherd (Public Health) Dr Tineke Water (Child Health Research)
Assoc Prof. Dave Parry (Computer and Mathematical Sciences) Assoc. Prof. Nazimah Hamid (Food Science and Microbiology)
One of the studies aimed to understand the experiences and needs of users at Starship Children’s Hospital Outpatients Department, around the key areas of: - Perceptions of the environment, including that of uniforms
- Wayfinding
- Food acceptability and eating experience - Soundscapes
One of the key consumer groups included in this study were children, who are users of the service but often the group least likely to be asked their opinions or perspectives.
Data was collected from:
- 184 children and young people ages 5 -16 using draw and tell and letter writing
- 250 intercept surveys with parents or caregivers - 2 focus groups with 16 staff (health professionals and allied)
Data from the children / young people has highlighted the importance of valuing children as experts of their healthcare experiences, and how gaining their unique perspectives are important when designing health care experiences and environments.
Awards & Press
Awards:The Best Design Awards, Designers Institute of New Zealand: Purple Pin & Gold for Public Good Design
Silver for Offices & Workplace Environments Press:
And here they are – the best of the Best Design Awards 2015
By IDEALOG, 12 Oct 2015 Designer Health
Radio New Zealand, 11 September 2015
Case Study. DHWLab/AUT/Auckland DHB Designing Better Healthcare Experiences
The Designers Institute of New Zealand
Hive of creativity in Auckland Hospital aiming to improve user experience.
By Rachel Wattie, nzDoctor.co.nz, 8 October 2015 Hospital design lab wins top award
By Juliet Speedy, 3 News, 10 October 2015 They’re the best: awards name top designers
By Vaimoana Tapaleao, The NZ Herald, 10 October 2015
Bill, A., Collier, G., & Reay, S. (2015). Making Things Happen: Experiments in prototyping from a Hospital Design Lab. In Virtuous Circle Summer Cumulus Conference. Milan. Loy, J., Reay, S. D., & White, D. (2015). Raising our Game: Creating new learning experiences with research collaborations. In Great Expectations: Design Teaching, Research & Enterprise: 17th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education. Loughborough University, UK.
Reay, S. D. (2015). The Importance of an ’In Situ’ Prototyping Design Space to Improve Patient Experiences. In Healthcare Congress- Delivering the Future, today. Auckland, NZ. Reay, S. D., Bill, A., Collier, G., & Kennedy-Good, J. (2015). Designing authentic learning experiences: Interdisciplinary collaboration between design and healthcare. In Building an Enabling Society. 2 Grey St, Wellington, NZ.
Reay, S. D., Collier, G., Bill, A., Kennedy-Good, J., & Old, A. (2015). Designing New Healthcare Experiences: prototyping a physical space that enables a design approach to improving patient experiences in hospital. In K. Christer (Ed.), Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Design4Health. Sheffield, UK.
Reay, S. D., & Kennedy-Good, J. (2015). Co-Designing healthcare experiences: interdisciplinary collaboration between design and health. In Accelerating Continuous Improvement-7th Annual Ci forum Conference. Auckland, NZ.
