Design Thinking and Social Innovation for Healthcare

MMH 729 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The American healthcare system is complex and replete with human-centered design opportunities. For patients and caregivers, there is a steep learning curve to understanding how the system works, accessing information about services, making decisions about treatment and interventions, and advocating for needs. In this course students will engage in a highly experiential curriculum, applying design thinking methods and tools to improve healthcare navigation for patient populations with more limited healthcare access.

Over seven weeks students will learn about the empathy, synthesis, and idea generation phases of the design thinking process. Focus will be given to empathy research and practicing several methods that are effective for gathering qualitative data from health system stakeholders. Ultimately students will define real user needs and conceptualize interventions for a real-world, patient-centered healthcare challenge.