Healthcare design sprints: what can be changed and achieved in five days?

Abstract

This paper focuses on three design sprints aimed at co-designing healthcare services by employing service design methods and co-design approaches. The design sprints each lasted for 4–5 days, consisting of multiple teams and involving healthcare professionals, students, end-users, and facilitators from the service design field. The design sprints were examined to determine strengths and weaknesses in relation to health-related service development. The results highlight key insights from the three design sprints, which included learning and understanding through design methods, design thinking and dialogue and how these affected organisational culture and change. The findings, which are discussed in detail, include these insights and the effectiveness of design sprints in healthcare.