HELIX and IDEO stage 48 hour challenge to tackle instability in elderly people.

In June, the Institute of Global Health Innovation’s (IGHI) HELIX Centre design team combined forces with IDEO designers, clinicians from St Mary’s Hospital and colleagues in IGHI’s Centre for Health Policy to take a look at the prevention of falls in older people over the course of an intense two day challenge.

Three multidisciplinary teams addressed different issues before presenting initial insights and broad concepts to a panel of judges including Lord Ara Darzi, IDEO CEO Tim Brown, geriatric consultant Dr Colin Mitchell and senior physiotherapist Natasha Booton.

One team addressed “assessment” - How might we assess the person’s cognitive ability, physical ability and social support systems to determine their risk of a future fall?

The second team addressed “prevent” - How might we create positive changes to a person’s environment to support their activities of daily living and prevent and reduce the impact of future falls?

And the third team addressed “boost” - How might we help a person improve their balance, strength and stability to prevent future falls?

Over the course of two days the teams spent time conducting design research in the wards of St Mary’s hospital talking to patients who had a history of falls, and clinicians about the challenges of getting patients mobile again.

teams also received expert presentations from Dr Colin Mitchell, a consultant in geriatric medicine and Dr Barry Seemungal, a consultant neurologist with a specialist interest in dizziness.

At the end of the two day Design Dash the research and ideas were presented in the HELIX studio for feedback and direction from the judging panel. The ideas were broad in their scope including public awareness campaigns, self-assessment balance tests, consumer devices, street furniture and a rehab gym that attaches to a hospital bed.

The Design Dash has proved to be a fantastic way to explore a new brief in an intense, collaborative and open minded way. This process gave HELIX a strong indication on how to proceed within a proposed brief and provide valuable insights to guide a longer term research and development process.

HELIX designer Matt Harrison said “At HELIX we regularly work with clinicians, but bringing in designers from another organisation, and policy researchers added that extra perspective and energy that enriched the creativity and learning from the event.”

Lenny Naar, HELIX design strategist, and organiser of the Design Dash said “One of the unexpected benefits of this dash was the opportunity to embed our clinical and policy colleagues in the design process and enlighten them on the value of a design thinking approach.”

Frankie, our work experience secondary school student for the week said “The design dash was definitely a highlight of the week and is such a good idea for getting quick design solutions to a problem, it also helped me understand design a lot more in a short time.”

Geraint Edwards one of the IDEO designers said “Participants in the session (surgeons, doctors and policy people) were super engaged. I thought that was excellent. It is usually a real challenge to get all the stakeholders involved and in full participation.  It was really great to see their passion.”

HELIX Director Lord Darzi praised the organisation of the event, in particular the way that participants from different professions were well briefed and able together to work productively over such an intense session.

HELIX will continue to develop the Design Dash model as an effective way of investigating new briefs, building relationships with potential collaborators and involving others in the design and innovation process within the healthcare sector.