Ayşegül Özçelik, Jotte de Konning, and Jan-Carel Diehl
Healthcare system currently faces a series of interconnected sustainability challenges across various dimensions. These challenges range from the necessity to provide increased care for aging populations to the imperative of minimising systemic waste, designing more sustainable medical devices, and developing preventive care strategies. Given the interrelated nature of these challenges, it is essential to address them holistically rather than in isolation from one another. Consequently, we examine the relational perspective of sustainability transformation in healthcare. Specifically, we investigate the insights that relational theory can offer to transform healthcare into a more sustainable system. This involves exploring the connections that need to be established or dismantled, dynamic networks of interdependent actors, and practices, institutions, technologies, and forms of knowledge that could benefit from enhanced collaborative practices. Our exploration is grounded in 12 recent co-creation sessions focused on sustainable product, service, and system innovations in healthcare. We analyse the diverse forms of relationality present in these co-creation practices and their outcomes, and extrapolate their potential transformative capacity. In a subsequent study, we will conduct 10-12 interviews with healthcare professionals working in hospitals, med-tech companies, and academic institutions to gain a deeper understanding of the transformative relational impact of co-creation. Overall, this study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the transformative potential of co-creation practices in facilitating sustainability transformation in the healthcare sector. We aspire to provide insights that can assist others in exploring how co-creation can evolve from a methodological approach to a more relational means of transforming the healthcare system towards greater sustainability.
Keywords: healthcare, co-creation, relationality, sustainability transformation