The Future of Design for Health and Wellbeing

Healthcare is experiencing a rapid transformation largely due to the challenges posed by rising costs, inequalities in health provision, pandemics, aging populations and the rise in non-communicable diseases. Design is now playing an important role in addressing these challenges, by applying a user centred approach to transform healthcare along with the development of new products, services systems and spaces. This special issue first describes current advances within healthcare and the role of design in the future of health care. It then introduces three papers that address design for health and wellbeing. The first paper describes design probes to configure sensory conditions to reduce pain in hospitals. The second paper, explores the use of participatory design in the co-designing of resources for knowledge-based self-reflection for people living with Parkinson’s disease to enable independent living. The third paper describes a multidisciplinary research project concerned with the development and prototyping of a training tool for neurosurgery. This special issue highlights the varied benefits that design can bring to create better experiences for all stakeholder within the healthcare model. It advocates for Design to continue to be a major part of this transformation in healthcare.