Aligning Healthcare and Design Evidence Practices for Enhanced eHealth Development
Category: User-Centred Design · Effect: Moderate effect · Year: 2023
Identifying shared evidence practices between healthcare and design professionals can bridge disciplinary gaps and foster a more cohesive approach to eHealth system development.
Design Takeaway
Integrate a framework that explicitly acknowledges and utilizes the five identified shared evidence practices (stakeholder, process, problem, effect, solution-driven) throughout the eHealth development lifecycle.
Why It Matters
Effective eHealth systems require a deep understanding of both user needs (healthcare) and design principles. Recognizing commonalities in how these fields approach evidence can lead to more user-centric and impactful digital health solutions.
Key Finding
The study found that despite different backgrounds, healthcare and design professionals utilize similar approaches to evidence in their work, which can be leveraged to improve collaboration in developing eHealth systems.
Key Findings
- Healthcare and design professionals share five core evidence practices: stakeholder-driven, process-driven, problem-driven, effect-driven, and solution-driven.
- Epistemological differences exist between the fields, but shared practices offer a foundation for mutual understanding.
- Alignment of development and research practices is crucial for successful eHealth outcomes.
Research Evidence
Aim: To investigate how healthcare and design professionals conceptualize and implement evidence in their work, and to identify shared evidence practices that can facilitate collaboration in eHealth development.
Method: Qualitative research using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis.
Procedure: Eight professionals from healthcare and design fields were interviewed about their evidence practices. Their responses were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify common themes and patterns.
Sample Size: 8 participants
Context: eHealth systems development
Design Principle
Foster interdisciplinary collaboration by identifying and leveraging common evidence-based practices.
How to Apply
When developing eHealth solutions, facilitate workshops where design and healthcare teams can map out their respective evidence practices, identifying overlaps and areas for synergy.
Limitations
The study involved a small sample size from specific professional backgrounds, which may limit the generalizability of findings to broader healthcare and design contexts.
Student Guide (IB Design Technology)
Simple Explanation: People who make healthcare technology and people who design it often think about 'evidence' in similar ways, even if they use different words. Finding these common ways of thinking can help them work together better.
Why This Matters: Understanding how different disciplines approach evidence is key to creating user-centered designs, especially in complex fields like eHealth where collaboration is essential.
Critical Thinking: To what extent do the identified 'shared' evidence practices truly represent a deep epistemological alignment, or are they merely superficial similarities in terminology?
IA-Ready Paragraph: This research highlights that professionals in healthcare and design share common evidence practices, such as being stakeholder-driven, process-driven, problem-driven, effect-driven, and solution-driven. Recognizing these shared approaches is crucial for fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and developing effective eHealth systems, suggesting that design projects should actively seek to integrate and align evidence from diverse professional perspectives.
Project Tips
- When researching a design problem, consider how different stakeholders (e.g., users, developers, clinicians) might define and use 'evidence'.
- Reflect on your own design process: is it driven by the problem, the solution, the user, the process, or the expected outcome? How does this align with potential end-users' perspectives?
How to Use in IA
- Use the identified shared evidence practices as a framework to analyze the needs and perspectives of different stakeholders in your design project.
- Discuss how your design process aligns with or deviates from these evidence-based approaches.
Examiner Tips
- Demonstrate an awareness of how evidence is conceptualized and utilized by different professional groups relevant to your design project.
- Show how your design decisions are informed by a synthesis of evidence from various sources and perspectives.
Independent Variable: Professional background (healthcare vs. design)
Dependent Variable: Conceptualization and implementation of evidence practices
Controlled Variables: Context of eHealth system development
Strengths
- Focuses on the critical interdisciplinary aspect of eHealth development.
- Identifies concrete shared practices that can guide collaboration.
Critical Questions
- How can these shared evidence practices be actively promoted and integrated into design education and professional development?
- What are the potential risks or drawbacks of over-emphasizing 'shared' practices without fully addressing underlying epistemological differences?
Extended Essay Application
- Investigate the evidence practices of professionals in a specific field relevant to your Extended Essay topic, and compare them with the evidence practices of designers.
- Propose a framework for integrating these diverse evidence approaches into a comprehensive design strategy for a complex problem.
Source
EXPLORING HEALTH AND DESIGN EVIDENCE PRACTICES IN EHEALTH SYSTEMS’ DEVELOPMENT · Proceedings of the Design Society · 2023 · 10.1017/pds.2023.180