ABSTRACT
Design is a set of practices aimed at realizing a certain desirable future and, as such, is predicated on the idea that the status quo can be improved. This chapter problematizes and highlights challenges facing health-care improvement and innovation, and discusses the role and opportunities that design can bring to this, co-design (CD) in particular. Readers will be introduced to CD’s practices and approaches, which act as a form of “anti-structure” to counteract a hegemonic medicalized service culture. Given that health care is a complex service ecosystem, CD’s stance is to engage all stakeholders—providers, deliverers, service receivers, and their carers—to allow for a plurality of voices, opinions, and positions in generating improved solutions. By eschewing tokenistic, top-down “consultation,” readers will appreciate the ways in which CD can help create the non-hierarchical situations, conditions, and tools for meaningful participation in—and contribution to—an end result, whether this is an improved experience of health care or a more appropriate intervention.
