A holistic outcome-based approach to co-create healthcare systems

Healthcare needs to be delivered more holistically, in a way that addresses outcomes for different stakeholders at different levels. Systems thinking has conceptually helped the understanding of the increasing complexity of healthcare outcomes. However, little consideration has been given on how to practically apply this concept to holistic outcome understanding to (re)design healthcare systems. Therefore, this paper aims to develop and evaluate a holistic outcome-based approach to healthcare systems co-creation. Participatory mapping workshops and interviews to co-visualise outcomes as an interconnected system were conducted with two groups: twenty-three design practitioners/researchers and twenty-one patients and healthcare service providers. Results emerged from network analysis which identified critical outcomes, disagreements, gaps and opportunities for system (re)design. The results demonstrated the potential role that this approach could have in gathering, communicating and negotiating the complex needs of multiple stakeholders for healthcare system (re)design.