Abstract
Current trends in the United States health care landscape call for innovative and adaptive approaches to improve outcomes and reduce inefficiencies. Design Thinking is an innovative approach to problem-solving that leverages insights from the end-users of new products, services, and experiences in order to develop best-fit solutions that are rapidly prototyped and iteratively refined. When compared to traditional problem-solving methods in health care and other public health adjacent fields, Design Thinking leads to more successful and sustainable interventions. Design Thinking has facilitated improvements in patient, provider, and community satisfaction, and in public health, has increased efficiency and collaboration in intervention development. Given the promising nature of Design Thinking as an effective problem-solving method, it follows that Design Thinking training would prove a beneficial addition to public health education. The integration of Design Thinking in public health education may equip public health leaders with essential skills necessary to understand and more effectively approach historically intractable challenges. This article describes the development and evaluation of a hands-on Design Thinking workshop, piloted with Master of Public Health (MPH) students in April, 2019 at Thomas Jefferson University. Preceding and following the workshop, evaluation forms were used to assess participants' knowledge about Design Thinking concepts and attitudes towards the workshop experience. Metrics were aligned with established learning objectives related to process, impact, and outcomes of the workshop. We hypothesized that the workshop intervention would increase participants understanding of Design Thinking concepts and applications in public health. Evaluations demonstrated that after attending the workshop, participants were able to understand and apply Design Thinking concepts in a public health context. Following the evaluation of pilot data, the workshop was refined and embedded in the MPH curriculum at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA.
Highlights
Despite rapid advancements in research and technology, the United States health care system continues to endure pervasive inefficiencies including inequitable access, inconsistent quality, and high costs relative to comparable nations [1]
All feedback was taken into consideration and workshop agenda, slides, and worksheets were refined. This workshop module represents the first integration of Design Thinking training into the public health curriculum at Jefferson
Our findings indicate that a workshop intervention can increase participants’ knowledge of Design Thinking and its applications, and demonstrate the feasibility of integrating Design Thinking training into public health education
Summary
Despite rapid advancements in research and technology, the United States health care system continues to endure pervasive inefficiencies including inequitable access, inconsistent quality, and high costs relative to comparable nations [1]. Evidence suggests that innovation is an essential competency among the health care workforce to increase productivity and address these inefficiencies [2]. Innovation is uniquely challenging in public health, as problems tend to be complex, dynamic, and contextspecific, and can at times arise quickly and unpredictably, raising the urgency for rapid and efficient responses [3]. Current educational models in health care and public health provide limited training in creative thinking and innovation skills [2, 4]. Traditional public health education may be augmented through the inclusion of innovative, non-linear, adaptive, and cost-effective tools [5,6,7,8]
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