Design Thinking: A Futuristic Approach to Innovation and Change Management - Free Paper

Introduction

The design thinking concept was first introduced to the business world by the international design organization – IDEO (IDEOU, 2020). While creating the concept, the innovators at IDEO intended to re-conceptualize change management and innovation in organizations. They aimed to shift from the retrospective and reaction-based approaches to a more futuristic, user-centered, empathetic, and experimentation-based approach. The crucial component of design thinking was the focus on what the people want rather than what top management and technocrats determine as the ideal solutions. Also, the design process values human collaboration and idea formulation. It is no surprise that the concept quickly gained international acceptance as a preferred approach to innovation and change management.

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The design thinking language quickly penetrated the healthcare sector as a viable solution for complex patient problems (Roberts et al., 2016). Also, the concept allowed nursing and healthcare researchers to concentrate on change management and innovation in health organizations. In this present analysis, the author shall aim to study the promotion of patient health through multidisciplinary collaboration and innovation processes that would ensure more collaborative and change-focused organizational models. The design thinking process is an opportunity for organizations to create human-centered solutions in highly collaborative and change-focused organizational environments (Roberts et al., 2016). This methodology is thereby an illustration of a highly transformative and participatory system that is based on corporate values and active engagement of the essential stakeholders. Design thinking combines the concepts of idea desirability, technological feasibility, and economic viability. According to the CEO of IDEO, design thinking is defined as;

"….a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success" (IDEOU, 2020).

While theoretical findings provide for the design thinking methodology in nursing and healthcare, the practical domain continues to move to the design thinking approach somewhat slowly. In that light, this capstone project proposes to practically study the components and features of the design thinking journey in the healthcare context.

Impact of Study on the Nursing Profession

Design Thinking in Healthcare

Generally, design thinking is a solutions-based approach to design issues that focuses on the needs of the people we are designing for (Beaird et al., 2018). As opposed to the traditional processes that were always based on the expertise of a single point of knowledge, design thinking democratizes the solution process to the innovators at various levels in the organization. The process starts with an understanding of the user's needs, motivation, and cultural alignments. After completing the empathy phase and sufficiently uncovering the complex interests of the users, the design thinkers then gather to brainstorm on probable solutions to the issues that the potential users presented. During brainstorming, the members of the design team are allowed to share their ideas in a safe and non-judgmental setting. This study thus impacts the nursing profession by enhancing evidence-based collaborative decision processes in complex decision systems (Beaird et al., 2018). While diverging and converging on ideas for the iteration phase, the members of the design team are allowed to collaborate freely without intimidation and top-down bureaucratic barriers.

With the immense success in the other disciplines, the design thinking approach continues to gain popularity in the healthcare sector as well (Mclaughlin et al., 2019). The continuing acceptance of the design thinking approach in the healthcare sector has been prompted by the need to adopt more patient-focused healthcare interventions. It is, however, noticeable that the healthcare system is often slow to change. Furthermore, the sector's approach to change is always more incremental than transformative. Design thinking has thereby been proposed as an ideal solution to this healthcare rigidity. The approach has successfully been used in designing new products, services, and spaces within healthcare organizations (Beaird et al., 2018). This study shall increase the evidence behind the need for complete integration of design thinking processes in organizational decision processes.

The user-centered approach that designs thinking continues to open the leaders in healthcare institutions to more innovative and value-based solutions to health promotion issues. In such solution-based systems, healthcare practitioners and administrators work collaboratively with a focus on the sustainable and human-centric change process (Brown & Wyatt, 2010). As this process begins with the patients, the proposed solutions shall, as such, be acceptable to the entire hospital community. Adopting such common grounds through empathy, ideation, and prototyping allows the members of the healthcare institution to strengthen their collaborative culture as well as the overlaying corporate culture. Design thinking allows hospital personnel to employ adaptive and proactive health promotion approaches by fully engaging the patients in their solutions (Brown & Wyatt, 2010). As such, design thinking possesses the potential to install a shared value system between healthcare providers and patients. When researchers and practitioners in the healthcare system involve the patients in their solution systems, the resulting corporate culture and environment allow all the engaged personnel to accept and adapt to the transformation. Since the rise of the learning institution's culture in healthcare institutions, nurses have continued to lead transformative systems within the institutions through multidisciplinary teams. We shall thereby, in the present study, embark on understanding the ideal approaches to patient engagement in the organization's decision system.

Collaboration and Change-Oriented Leadership

To ensure the success of the design thinking transformative approaches, healthcare institutions must foster a leadership system that is focused on change and innovation (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017). Such organizational culture must be focused on ideas creation, innovativeness, and creativity among the members. As opposed to the rigid and highly bureaucratic systems, the change organizations are bottom-up and laterally oriented in communication and management. Innovators in the health institution are not limited to the leaders in isolated locations. Instead, the departments of the organization work together with minimal cross-hierarchical barriers. The leaders aim to offer safety and collaborative atmospheres by allowing the employees to work with maximum autonomy. Multidisciplinary collaboration among the employees in these institutions will enable them to gain competencies in a wide range of competency domains (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017).

As the solutions-focused and transformative design groups aim to solve the complex scenarios facing the patients, active participation is fostered through the organization to enhance multiple sources of knowledge. Indigenous knowledge is thereby combined with expert opinion to result in an evidence-based-yet-contextualized knowledge base. While most health issues are often approached from an expert perspective, this new dual approach is often proposed to offer higher potency in solving patient health issues while promoting their future health conditions. Co-learning and information sharing during the design process allow the members of the organization and their patients to bond and improve their care services (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017).

It is hypothesized that change acceptance and adoption are often more comfortable when the change process is sufficiently communicated to the concerned parties (Altman et al., 2018). As such, through this design approach, the employees, clients, and administration will form a consistent communication loop. This loop will enhance the value sharing of the three groups of stakeholders while reinforcing the hands-off management style. This stakeholder trilogy thereby improves the operation of the organization by minimizing the communication and bureaucratic rigidity that often trouble management in health institutions. The author thereby intends to review the bureaucratic rigidity that may prevent transformative and lateral communicative approaches within the organization.

Impact of the Present Study on the Author's Personal Professional Journey

This project opens the author to an entirely new perspective on healthcare leadership and innovation. As such, the project shall impact the personal profession of the author in a variety of ways. First, the author has always been enthusiastic about the concept of human-centered leadership. As such, the author shall use the opportunity provided by this study to gain increased professional proficiency in transformative leadership. The researcher shall improve their ability to make better-informed decisions when faced with change situations. Through the experience from the design thinking journey, the author shall learn to engage in safer and more accommodating leadership practices (Altman et al., 2018).

Second, the success of this study will depend on the collaborative competency of the researcher. As this study entails immersing oneself into the patient and health workers' populations, the author shall improve their communication and collaborative abilities. Though this second competency is closely related to the first one, it is unique as it allows leaders to foster effective fundamental communication with fellow employees as well as their followers. To become a change manager, the leader must be able to work alongside fellow employees in a free and safe organizational setting.

Third, this study shall be conducted through workshops and design teams. The author will facilitate groups and workshops. In the process, the researcher shall be able to the author shall manage to gain practical competencies in the design journey. Research endorses the importance of improving the practical experience in design thinking in the healthcare sector. While most analysts focus on theoretical constructs and borrow findings from other domains to back the study in the healthcare sector, the author shall experience the practical side of design thinking in the healthcare sector. As an active participatory approach, the researcher shall also gain on-the-field competency in designing for the healthcare sector. Such hands-on knowledge will be highly essential in furthering the conversation around patient-focused care and change management.

Fourth, the researchers shall be engaging in a design process for an actual problem in the healthcare department. As such, the author shall gain targeted competencies in a real situation in health improvement. We shall select a genuine issue based on the problems presented by the patients. To deliberate on the probable solutions, the author and the design team will have to refer to their nursing and healthcare knowledge. As such, this process will not only be a learning journey in design. It will also be a learning journey in a selected area of healthcare provision and promotion.