Olga Hassan, Nita Lakhani, Maryam Mallakin, Kirk Mason, Christopher Rice, and Kummy Saliu
Supervised by Peter Jones
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most prevalent chronic disease in Canada, with 4 in 5 Canadians having at least one CV risk factor. The Canadian Cardiovascular Harmonized National Guideline Endeavour (C-CHANGE) guidelines harmonize recommendations from clinical practice guidelines to improve the prevention and treatment of CVD (Tobe et al., 2011). C-CHANGE clinicians engaged a team of healthcare design students to formulate design proposals for knowledge translation of lifestyle recommendations from the guidelines. The research question explored was how might we help people learn to self-manage their CV risk?
Interviews were conducted with patients and clinicians in primary care and specialist clinics to generate insights. Clinicians participated in an initial participatory design workshop that aimed to map and understand complex health information journeys. A second co-design workshop developed proposals for intervention in the system, aided by the use of personas and storyboards.
Reading the health action map
Research findings were summarized in a system map. The circular service blueprint proposes brief bursts of healthy lifestyle information created by multidisciplinary teams and targeted to the public at multiple touchpoints. A public-facing website is proposed as an interactive and supportive online repository of evidence-based health information. The next steps would include service design and evaluation of population health impacts.