Design in healthcare: the challenge of translation

Abstract This paper draws on the history of inclusive design and design for patient safety work at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art to illustrate translational difficulties facing product designs developed with and initiated by clinical researchers. Three case studies are explored to outline common challenges faced by innovations in the efforts to commercialise and achieve adoption into front line use. Translational difficulties were discussed in a multidisciplinary workshop with designers, human factors, regulatory and procurement personnel. The differences between the conceptions of the design process and the process by which innovations are adopted into widespread use were explored in more detail through mapping exercises and a pilot design project. The paper uses the case studies and a workshop to draw on theory of design and models for optimising translation, with a particular focus on procurement and incremental innovation. The conclusion is a proposed methodology for optimising the inclusive design process in healthcare to produce innovations which are more likely to be adopted into front line use. The methodology involves downstream stakeholders (namely regulatory and procurement expertise) in addition to the standard front line users, building in ambition from incremental to more fundamental innovations.