Designing the ecosystem to make the work easier

by Victor Montori

While in London, I had the chance of reconnecting with J. Paul Neely, a brilliant designer with whom I had the pleasure of working when he was at Mayo as part of the SPARC Innovation Program.  He is a Masters student at the Royal College of Art and he thought his peers would enjoy learning about our work.  After I presented my talk, a team that is intent on designing out medical error showed their efforts to redesign the hospital bays to ensure health professionals wash their hands.

After much discussion, it become clear that both sets of projects were not about designing a solution, or a system of solutions, but rather they were about redesigning the ecosystem in which the work occurs — the work of being a chronically ill patient or of being a health professional —  and engineering that ecosystem to make that work easier, minimally disruptive.  Ohh!! Love it when ideas from different backgrounds, disciplines and foci have a chance to collide and reproduce!  Thanks J. Paul!