This story was published in the SCMP’s Education Post on 25 January, 2017.
Stacey Chang is the Executive Director of the Design Institute for Health, a collaboration between the Dell Medical School and the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The Design Institute for Health is tasked to create a new approach to modern health by applying design methodologies. Chang visited Hong Kong in June 2016 to moderate and speak at the Shaping Healthy Cities morning session of the Knowledge of Design Week event (KODW). At this session, he shared some of the experiences and learnings uncovered by his team as they have explored the possible health system of the future.
Reinventing a health system to better serve modern citizens and the future demographics of societies across the globe is truly a new frontier, and a once-in-a-lifetime design opportunity. According to Chang, at present many of society’s health systems are, by nature, inherently inscrutable. They are complex in the way they work which makes them both difficult to understand and a robust design challenge.
So, what does the health system of the future look like? Chang explained that it should look like whatever a society demands of it. He encouraged the people to truly consider what they need from a health system and then to demand that from private enterprise and their government. He clarified, “it’s about encouraging members of society to have an explicit voice and define the future health systems that they care about. None of that will be clear until the populations they serve make clear what they want.”
Read the full article here.
Rebecca Simpson. Writer and editor. 