I recently came across an interesting initiative by and for designers interested in improving health & health care called “Prescribe Design”. From their web site at http://prescribedesign.com/ –
We are firm believers in the power of people-centered design to radically transform healthcare. It is our belief that designers are one of the most untapped, underutilized assets in the healthcare industry. We created Prescribe Design to merge the conversations in design with those in health, bringing design natives and healthcare natives together.
We call it Prescribe Design for a couple of reasons. First, it’s an action. This platform is about sparking conversation that inspires the real, practical collaboration between designers and healthcare natives. Second, it’s inclusive. The name suggests a merging of communities and we even designed our logo to hint at this. A mortar and pestle blends two distinct ingredients into one new, combined whole: design + health.
Prescribe Design was co-founded by Aaron Sklar and Lenny Naar and is supported by an ever-growing network of collaborators. To start, we’ve invited six rock stars in the field to share their wisdom. We’re inspired by their thinking and are sure you’ll find their work fascinating. You can read our introductory blog post entitled “The Next Big Frontier in Healthcare” here. We’re a group of people committed to enabling designers and healthcare natives to transform healthcare. It’s a conversation — and we’d love for you to be a part of it.
They are communicating using the #PrescribeDesign hashtag on Twitter or in a LinkedIn group that you can join. I hope that if you’re interested in designing great health care tools, you’ll check them out and connect with them!