Designing Healthcare

The One Thing Healthcare Needs to do Today

cassiemc — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:28:51 +0000

“Unlike the interstate highway system, which did produce smooth roads across state lines, healthcare wasn’t designed. It just happened.” – a two year old blog post by Jay Parkinson Over the last few weeks, through recruitment efforts and heavy workloads, I’ve been wondering – how do we get more designers in healthcare? I need help! This leads … Continue reading →

Guest post: Varuna Prakash’s review of the inaugural HFES Symposium

cassiemc — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:21:04 +0000

As I dust off the old blog here, I should thank my colleagues for helping me keep this going with a few inspired guest posts. Several of us at the Centre have been to various presentations and conferences lately, but as it goes when we are away from work, we spend a lot of time … Continue reading →

Healthcare Experience Design conference

cassiemc — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:03:28 +0000

I shared a snippet or two of my sketch notes from Healthcare Experience Design conference last week, but I haven’t yet posted the full spread, so here it is! I’ve got my fingers crossed to work with mad*pow on making it an interactive, possibly linking the illustrations to the sound bytes or video clips they reference (an awesome suggestion … Continue reading →

Your patient is my father

cassiemc — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 05:58:02 +0000

Last week my oldest brother got a call at midnight from Doctor K that our father needed to go into surgery right away and that he had a fifty percent chance of surviving the procedure. My dad lives in Texas and was being treated in a hospital three hours from where he lives, but my … Continue reading →

Guest post: Hacking Health in Montreal

cassiemc — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:25:58 +0000

Last weekend we sent one of our own over to Montreal to take part in Hacking Health, which is a fantastic initiative to bring clinicians, designers and developers together in a Startup-Weekend-like scenario to tackle some big health problems in an accelerated timeframe. Anthony Mei was our representative at the event. He is relatively new … Continue reading →

Hearts and Health

cassiemc — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:53:29 +0000

February is heart awareness month and today of course is Valentine’s Day (hooray for love!). In celebration of the day, here are some lovely, well-designed hearts. Hearts in red. Hearts in blue. Hearts for every one of you. And winner of the Best Designed Heart award goes to: the one thumping in your chest. Take … Continue reading →

Hierarchy of Effectiveness: the process

cassiemc — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:22:23 +0000

Last week I gave a centre-wide presentation (50+ people) about my work, a rewarding presentation because I got to share a variety of my pieces and the process behind them. Process is one of the most interesting things you can show someone because it is a glimpse behind the curtain, an affirmation that design is … Continue reading →

Barriers to creativity in healthcare

cassiemc — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:39:36 +0000

I only have time for a short-ish post this week so thought I’d explore a question that occurred to me recently. Why is creativity scary to some people in healthcare? Not design, not art, not innovation — but creativity itself, as a process. Some potential factors: Embracing creativity means doing things differently. In healthcare, different is … Continue reading →

A critical review: The Eatery

cassiemc — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:51:16 +0000

Working at an academic, non-profit institution means my team has no imperative to make money on what we build. Whether it is to our gain or detriment is up for debate, but we never talk about advertising, revenue, and rarely mention marketing. That we mostly ignore the B word (budget) during production is a refreshing … Continue reading →

Walking into a hospital: 20 Design Challenges

cassiemc — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:57:26 +0000

For anyone who doesn’t regularly spend time in a hospital, walking into one is challenging. You imagine everyone you see is a doctor or a nurse striding confidently toward a patient to, oh I don’t know, save someone’s life, their elevated status making you feel small and inconsequential. At every corner are stands with old … Continue reading →