Doug Dietz: Transforming Healthcare for Children and their Families
As Principal Designer for GE Healthcare, Doug Dietz had been designing diagnostic imaging equipment for more than 20 years before he realised that young patients’ actual experience of this cutting edge technology was kinda awful. He put together a team of experts to solve this problem, including staff from a local Children’s Museum, kids and Hospital staff. The result was an innovative, design-driven solution that utterly transformed the experience for children.
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ABOUT Doug Dietz
“Beyond how it looked and functioned, what was the experience like for patients? What Doug Dietz found were real needs that required addressing. Children were often terrified by the idea of lying still and alone in huge, noisy equipment and often needed to be sedated to get through a scan. Sedation added unnecessary risk, fear and created a generally awful experience.
Without an official budget or staff, Doug put together a team of people who cared deeply about the issue. The result? With some paint, scents, lights and a little imagination, the scan rooms were turned into adventures: in one room, there is an ocean and the scanner is a submarine. In another the scanner becomes a tent in a camping experience.
The ‘Adventure Series’ scanners have been hugely popular with kids, and the Hospitals and Doctors who are GE’s customers. Doug now trains other GE employees–both in the medical division and beyond–to use design thinking and innovation methods in their teams.”
The VIDEO
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