dLab: Design For Service Innovation

Health Track

In the health track, all project teams will work on real problems affecting real healthcare providers and the individuals they serve. They will also interact with real patients, nurses, doctors, and support personnel in solving their design challenges.

This year, the California HealthCare Foundation is playing a central role in supporting the Design for Service Innovation health track. In addition to underwriting aspects of the course, the Foundation has facilitated three important health-related partnerships—San Mateo Medical Center, San Francisco General Hospital, and Ocean-Park Health Center (see side bar). These “safety net” hospitals and clinics serve a high percentage of Medi-Cal and uninsured patients and operate at high capacity with severe resource constraints.

Possible Student Projects

Working with these partners, students will explore projects that deal with workflow optimization and/or improving medical adherence. For example, they might tackle problems like the ones listed below:

The 6 Minute Walk Test is a common assessment used in pulmonary diagnosis and rehabilitation. However, at an over-crowded hospital, nurses must administer this test in a hectic hallway. The make-shift testing process is frustrating for nurses, awkward for patients, and prone to errors.
A busy respiratory clinic has a substantial appointment backlog. Walk-in hours are available one morning per week for patients with pressing issues, but the clinic is routinely unable to meet patient demand due, in part, to suboptimal workflows.
In a space-constrained hospital, a single exam room is used to deliver specialty care in the morning and primary care in the afternoon. Healthcare providers are continually moving necessary equipment in and out of the room and struggle with other difficulties in adjusting the small space to meet their patients’ needs.
As they rotate through the respiratory clinic, residents have a difficult time keeping up with the dozens of different products they can prescribe to help asthma patients. Each product has a slightly different profile with respect to when/why to prescribe it, how to train patients to use it, insurance coverage (which varies by plan), and likelihood of patient compliance.

Other projects will be available in the area of improving the experience of pediatric patients with chronic conditions as they transition to adult care. The following scenario represents one possible design challenge in this space:

Because the children’s hospital is over-burdened , it must refer its pediatric patients with chronic conditions to the adult hospital when they come of age. These transitions often don't go well, with the possibility of information being lost in the transition and the "new adult" patients feeling alienated and misunderstood in the new environment.

The final portfolio of health track projects will be announced in early November.

How Are Design Challenges Identified?

The projects chosen for the 2011-2012 Design for Service Innovation health track stem from work performed in the Summer and Fall by two graduates of last year’s course, David Janka and Ioulia Kachirskaia. Over a period of several months, David and Ioulia met with representatives from the partner organizations and conducted extensive observations in their facilities to identify “pain points.” Now, these needs are being categorized, assessed, and filtered in conjunction with the teaching team to identify meaningful projects that can be effectively addressed by this year’s students.

In her role as one of one of two Design for Service Innovation Fellows at the Stanford GSB, Ioulia will continue supporting the course this year as a mentor and coach to the student teams during Winter quarter. She will also assist teams that decide to pursue their solutions beyond the 10-week quarter. Ioulia has a PhD in cell/molecular biology, was a postdoctoral fellow in epithelial biology, and is passionate about design thinking and health innovation. Read more about her on the Our Team page.

[The course] really broadened my perspective, both about the nature of the lives of the patients we were serving and what it meant to produce a scalable, sustainable solution that would meet their needs.

-- Daniel Stringer
PhD candidate, Education

Health Track Details:

The health track will be co-taught by Jim Patell, Stefanos Zenios, and Julian Gorodsky.

This section will meet every Monday and Wednesday during Winter quarter. Class sessions run from 4:15-6 pm in the NGP CoLab at the Knight Management Center. Health track students must attend the class meetings for the health section (finance and health sessions will differ in content and team exercises).

If you’re interested in the health track, be sure to apply for this section. The health track is offered as OIT 343/01 through the Graduate School of Business, as MED 274 and HRP 274 through the School of Medicine, and as BIOE 372 through the BioEngineering department. The class is 4 units.

Application:

Admission to the health track is by application. Please note these key dates:

Nov 2 – Applications available! Download here: Health app
Nov 16 – Applications due, 12:00pm noon
Nov 30 – Admission decisions announced
Dec tbd – Course welcome meeting

We look forward to having you in class!

New Health Partners for 2012!

San Mateo Medical Center is a 509-bed public hospital and clinic system. The Medical Center operates outpatient clinics throughout San Mateo County, an acute-care hospital, and long-term care facilities in San Mateo and Burlingame. The Medical Center serves the healthcare needs of all residents of San Mateo County, with an emphasis on education and prevention. Its mission is “to open doors to excellence in healthcare."

San Francisco General Hospital & Trauma Center, which is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, is a licensed general acute care hospital. SFGH provides a full complement of inpatient, outpatient, emergency, skilled nursing, diagnostic, mental health, and rehabilitation services for adults and children. SFGH’s mission is “to provide quality healthcare and trauma services with compassion and respect.”

The mission of Ocean-Park Health Center is “to keep individuals and families in the community healthy through preventive and primary health care services provided by a multidisciplinary, culturally sensitive staff of trained professionals.” The health center serves all age groups and a diversity of patients, including many recent immigrants and those with limited English skills. Ocean-Park’s services encompass primary care for acute and chronic medical problems and some specialty care, particularly related to family planning and prenatal care.

As noted, we will also continue our partnership with the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.

For More Information:

Email designforservice@gsb.stanford.edu

OIT343 dLab: Design for Service Innovation