Healthcare Innovation by Design

debrasatterfield:

I have been thinking a lot about emotions this week. Well, more precisely, have been experiencing a lot of emotions this week. On January 22, one of my students disappeared from the Iowa State University campus without a trace. The police have no idea what happened to him. And, no one noticed his absence for eight days…we just went about our business, doing what we do as students and professors. It leaves us all with a sad, haunting feeling…

Everything seems to begin and end with emotions.

When I started working with medical experience design it was driven by the feeling that this was not typical marketing. Medical experiences, as I had so poignantly experienced, did not strive for that happy nirvana that seems to be the goal of most marketing campaigns. Medical experiences encompass a complete range of emotions.

But it was one of my good friends, a highly regarded pediatric specialist, who said it best, “One of the biggest problems I face is parents who can’t manage their emotions..” Because of the extremely complicated, high-risk nature of the conditions that he deals with, he was constantly trying to cope with patients who could not manage feelings such as fear, anxiety, or anger. People who have every right to be mad. Every right to be afraid. It was then that I realized that as a designer I could maybe design information, environments, artifacts, or communities that could serve as a mediating device to help people manage these emotions.

We all have a right to our emotions… not to be a slave to them, but to experience them and to process them in our own ways.

Medical experience design is not like a branding campaign for a new designer perfume. It doesn’t bring with it a lot of sex-appeal. But, maybe medical experience design can help us manage our feelings. One thing I know all too well is that not everyone will get well, but everyone can be empowered with trust and dignity.