Using Journey Mapping and Service Blueprinting to Design Digital Health Behavior Change Innovations: A Scoping Review.

Abstract

Introduction: Solutions to support disease self-management and health-related behavior changes require a deep understanding of patient experiences, needs, and challenges across the care journey. Journey mapping (JM) and service blueprinting (SB) are valuable tools for visualizing user experiences and system processes over time. This scoping review explores how JM/SBs have been applied to design digitally enabled interventions targeting health-related behaviors among patients and the public.

Methods: The JBI reviewer manual was used to guide the review. Studies were sourced from Embase, Psych Info, PubMed, Medline, Web of Science, and Scopus. Inclusion criteria required studies to describe how JM/SBs informed the design of a digitally enabled health innovation that aimed to impact health or health care-related behaviors of patients or the public. A two-level screening process and iterative data extraction were applied.

Results: A total of 28 studies met the inclusion criteria, with a majority published between 2019 and 2024. The JM/SBs rarely used behavioral science theory and were structured, organized, and presented in diverse ways. Most studies designed their digital health behavior change innovations by using JM/SB to identify relevant innovation touchpoints across the patient journey. Patients frequently participated in the digital health behavior change innovation design process, with JM/SBs often serving as sensemaking tools. Innovations tended to address multifaceted health service problems through multimodal, digitally enabled solutions.

Conclusions: JM/SBs are emerging as versatile tools to help digital health innovations to conduct user research, engage diverse partners, identify complex problems, and ideate creative solutions. However, limited integration of behavioral science theory indicates an area for future exploration.