Methodology Development

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus in healthcare services and applied health research to involve patients and people who may use these services in the design of healthcare interventions and pathways. Various terms have been used to characterize such approaches – including co-design, co-production, and experience-based co-design, among others.

As this is a relatively new research field, several issues need to be addressed such as the terminology and definition of different co-design approaches; the use of frameworks to guide the development and implementation of the co-design process; and how to define the success of a codesign project, among others. Additionally, most of the published literature originates in Western high-income countries, while academic papers from Asia are not common. However, IBASHO, a codesign process led by A/Prof Emi Kiyota has been successfully applied in various projects in diverse settings across Asia.

The aim of this study is to scope and review the available literature on co-design, in order to: (1) identify the types of co-design approaches used in healthcare, social care and community settings, (2) identify the core components of each co-design method and the similarities and differences between them, and (3) describe the success criteria for such approaches – i.e., how we know that when applied they ‘work’. In the second phase of the project, a range of stakeholders, including health providers and planners, technology designers, payers and local residents will engage with the results from this scoping review. The objective of this stakeholder-driven work will be to inform the co-design methodology to be used in the Health District population health programme, led by the NUS Centre for Population Health and other BISI projects.

This research project is undertaken jointly with A/Prof Emi Kiyota (Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Department of Architecture, NUS) and with seed funding from the Health District population health programme.