In an ideal world, how would diabetes be managed?
Having identified the characteristics for a new approach to diabetes care, the Design Council presented their ideas to leading healthcare experts in the UK and the US, asking them to develop a vision for the future of diabetes management.
Although the resulting ideas were too far removed from the current realities of the Bolton Group to put into practice immediately, they helped to give a direction to the project, as Colin Burns, a design consultant who worked with the Design Council on the project, explains. ‘Rather than concentrate on trying to create the ideal scenarios presented by the healthcare experts, we instead developed a series of stepping stones to take the ground-breaking work already happening in Bolton in the direction of that ideal future.’
The first step towards the ideal diabetes care scenario involved
- understanding patients’ needs in terms of their daily lives as much as their condition,
- changing the nature of the contact between patients and the health service
- and bringing in patients’ informal circles of support.
With these goals in mind, the team began to develop ideas for the tools and services that could facilitate these positive changes.
The initial ideas
The team came up with a wide range of initial ideas to help people manage their diabetes better. These included
- a service in which more ‘able’ diabetes patients are matched with those struggling with the condition to act as mentors
- the introduction of ‘Just in Time’ techniques, inspired by manufacturing industry, to eliminate doctors’ waiting rooms
- the opportunity for patients to choose a life coach to inspire and motivate at potentially difficult times
- and the development of a ‘future magic mirror’ which would show patients how the lifestyle choices they make now will affect them in the future.
As the team’s ideas began to crystallise into tangible and achievable products and services, a design concept emerged that centred on breaking down the entrenched protocols of the doctor and patient consultations. Specifically, the team looked at how these consultations could potentially reveal the crucial – but currently hidden – enablers and barriers to effective self-care. The team decided to develop a tool to tackle this issue head on.
