Experienced Based Design

The Client NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement

The Challenge

The NHS wanted to explore how using design tools and methods in healthcare settings could help improve patient experience —an unprecedented endeavour at the time. The aim was to develop new ways of understanding the patient experience and co-designing service improvements and innovations in different healthcare settings.

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Our Approach

We engaged and co-designed with patients, staff and carers from 20+ NHS hospitals and clinics to develop and test how Experienced Based Design (EBD) could work in a healthcare setting to improve patient experience. We conducted ethnographic research and co-design workshops to gather insights for designing the EBD toolkit, whilst supporting the co-design and prototyping of service improvements within a range of healthcare settings.

The Outcome

We pioneered Experience Based Design (EBD), an innovative method and toolkit for co-designing health services involving patients and healthcare professionals. Healthcare institutions have globally adopted EBD.

“Over the years, thinkpublic has taught me so much about the practical use of Design Thinking and Design Methodology when applied to health. They are highly skilled at planning, doing and focused on really understanding the problem so that the results of the work have real impact.”

Dr Lynne Maher

Director of Innovation NHS Institute For Innovation & Improvement

At thinkpublic, we have worked within many healthcare settings globally to use co-design to successfully engage staff and patients in improving and innovating healthcare services. We have also adapted this co-design approach over the years to be used to tackle a wide range of social and environmental challenges.