Healthcare by Design: A User's Guide to Healthcare Improvement

by Barry Katz, Simon Mawer, Future Medical Systems, LLC, Kara Harrington, Rob Lister

Overview

Healthcare by Design presents a practical, step-by-step guide for healthcare professionals seeking to address challenges such as regulation, safety, complexity, and culture, which affect patients and families, clinicians, and healthcare organizations.

Written by experienced design professionals with specific expertise in healthcare, Barry Katz, Simon Mawer, Kara Harrington, Rob Lister, Schirin Lucie Richter, and Svava Maria Atladóttir, the book draws upon recent developments in design theory and extensive industry experience. Understanding that design is as much about mindsets as methods, it provides practitioners with tools that will guide changemakers in ways to frame questions and identify opportunities, build teams, and create institutional support, and to scale their solutions throughout their respective organizations.

With the aid of illustrations, charts, worksheets, and case studies, Healthcare by Design brings the creative practice of designers into productive partnership with the data-driven, evidence-based world of healthcare. The book reveals how a designer's toolkit – ideation, design research, prototyping – can be used to solve problems with fresh eyes. As a result, Healthcare by Design will provide an invaluable guide to creating actionable and sustainable solutions to improve healthcare delivery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487550066
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	03/15/2025
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Barry M. Katz is an emeritus professor of industrial and interaction design at the California College of the Arts. Simon Mawer is director of risk innovation at Keck Medicine of USC and an adjunct professor of business design at the Rotman School of Management. Kara Harrington designs healthcare experiences and is a co-founder of Future Medical Systems. Rob Lister is a designer in healthcare and co-founder of Future Medical Systems. Schirn Lucie Richter is a CERC affiliated scholar at the Stanford School of Medicine and co-founder of Future Medical Systems. Svava Maria Atladottir is chief transformation officer and executive director at Landspitali University Hospital.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Scope
2. Prepare
3. Discover
4. Synthesize
5. Generate
6. Prototype
7. Pilot
8. Spread
Conclusion
Index

Editorial Reviews

“Healthcare by Design offers a powerful roadmap for anyone ready to transform healthcare from the inside out. Through compelling case studies and practical frameworks, it proves that meaningful change doesn't require special privilege—just the courage to challenge the status quo. At Stanford Medicine X, we've long advocated for patient and end-user co-production; this book now provides a toolkit to make it happen. A must-read for every healthcare changemaker.”—Larry Chu, Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine and Director of the Stanford Anesthesia Informatics and Media Lab, Stanford University

From the Publisher