A Human-Centric Approach to Digital Innovation Projects in Health Care: Learnings from Applying Design Thinking

Digital innovation is described to harbor great potential to improve health care. Yet, much of this potential has not been realized. A number of context-specific factors are described to limit implementation of innovative digital solutions. To attenuate these limits in development, we propose a human-centric approach using elements of Design Thinking. We follow a design science research approach using two cases of digital innovation in health care. Based on qualitative and quantitative evaluations performed with care givers we used an iterative prototyping approach to create digital artifacts aimed at improving the underlying health care processes. We detail the research processes of an augmented reality smart glass application for documenting chronic wounds and a smartphone application to support dispensing medication. Based on the exemplary cases, we derive process learnings on applying Design Thinking methods to digital innovation projects in health care.     «

Digital innovation is described to harbor great potential to improve health care. Yet, much of this potential has not been realized. A number of context-specific factors are described to limit implementation of innovative digital solutions. To attenuate these limits in development, we propose a human-centric approach using elements of Design Thinking. We follow a design science research approach using two cases of digital innovation in health care. Based on qualitative and quantitative evaluatio...     »