Using Design Thinking to Improve the Health Sector

Environmental epidemiologist Dr Raymond Neutra gave a talk entitled "How Does the Health Sector Affect Gross National Happiness? Let Us Ask Ourselves!" at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) on 3 December. The talk was the fifth instalment of the Global Health Lectures series, which is organised jointly by ISGlobal and its allied research centre CREAL.

Dr Neutra's presentation focused on design thinking, a practical and innovative problem-solving methodology that seeks to improve future results through a combination of empathy, creativity and rationality. Innovation requires new ways of perceiving and interpreting the world around us. In design thinking, therefore, experts from different disciplines work together in pursuit of a single goal. Dr Neutra argued that this method could be useful in the development of the health sector because health care not only involves tangibles, such as medicines, but also depends on intangibles, such as clinical practice, treatment strategies and protocols.

The Global Health Lectures cover topics related to global health and are organised under the umbrella of the strategic alliance between ISGlobal and CREAL. They also provide an opportunity for scientific dialogue between staff from the various research units at the two centres.