IN SESSION: Digital Transformation and the Future of Healthcare

In this talk, Ashley and Venere discussed the role of digitalisation in the healthcare sector using the perspective of the design discipline.

• How is digitalisation and digital technologies changing products, services, and people's experience within the healthcare domain?
• How is digitalisation impacting citizens, patients and doctors' perceptions toward the new future of healthcare?

Interactive polls with over 150 participants informed us that:

50% of the attendees think that encouraging behaviour change for preventative healthcare is the most promising challenge for the digitalisation of healthcare, followed by 38% who voted for looking after an ageing population at home. 35% think that using AI to identify diseases at early stages is promising, 32% voted for boosting telemedicine and online consulting whereas only 25% believe that encouraging more ownership of personal data is the most promising challenge.

25% of the attendees strongly think that healthcare designers should focus on the future of the planet, 20% voted for equal focus on human health and the future of the planet and 13% think that more focus should be given to human health.

References:

Wojdecka, A., Balint, T., Hall, A., (2022) Designing Out Unwanted Healthcare Futures: A New Framework For Healthcare Design Innovation with Intent, EPDE Sept 6-8th 2022, South Bank University, London.

Hall, Ashley, Wojdecka, Anna, (2021), De-anthropocentrising healthcare design, Zhangshi, 126 (4). pp. 20-25.

Bruno, C., Ferraro, V., Rampino, L., Testa S. (2021). Designing an Informed and Aware Behavioural Transition towards a Sustainable Food Life Cycle. In 14th International Conference of the European Academy of Design, Safe Harbours for Design Research, Vol. 9: 5, pp. 229-238, BRA.

Venere Ferraro, Lucia Rampino, and Mila Stepanovic, “A Plurisensorial Device to Support Human Smell in Hazardous Environment and Prevent Respiratory Disease”, Advances in Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 2019, Article ID 3094560, 10 pages, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/3094560. WOS (Web of Science™) Indexed Journal.

Venere Ferraro, Venanzio Arquilla (2017). “The Role of Design as Technology Enabler: A Personalized Integrated Predictive Diabetes Management System”. In: (ed.): Paolo Perego Giuseppe Andreoni Giovanna Rizzo, “Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare” p. 406-414, Springer International Publishing, 2017. SCOPUS indexed Book.

Chute, C., & French, T. (2019). Introducing care 4.0: an integrated care paradigm built on industry 4.0 capabilities. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(12), 2247.

Paglialonga, A., Patel, A. A., Pinto, E., Mugambi, D., & Keshavjee, K. (2019). The healthcare system perspective in mHealth. In m_Health Current and Future Applications (pp. 127-142). Springer, Cham.

Speakers

Professor Ashley Hall

Professor of Design Innovation, Postgraduate Research Lead, RCA

Ashley is Professor of Design Innovation, Postgraduate Research Lead in the school of design at the Royal College of Art and Head of Programme for the MRes Healthcare Design delivered with Imperial College.

Venere Ferraro

Associate Professor, Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano

Venere, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Department of Design of Politecnico di Milano and on of the scientific coordinator of the Think Tank of the Department. She participated in several International and National research both as coordinator (DATEMATS”-KA2-2018) and as principal investigator (Destex- Strategic PA and In Transit- HEurope). Her research deals with wearable technologies, emerging materials, and big data for healthcare and wellbeing by using a human-centred approach.

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