Postgraduate Course: Foundations of Design for Care in the Digital Age (HEIN11086)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Medical School |
College | College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | In order to respond to the complex challenges of delivering and embedding digital transformation in health and social care services, digital leaders should be aware of the design challenges and opportunities. This course introduces proven design mindsets, methods, and processes, and demonstrates how to apply these to shaping digital products and services. Its practice based and collaborative approach focuses on leading transformation with people at its heart. |
| Course description |
1) Academic description
To drive, deliver, and embed service transformation in health and care services, new responses to complex challenges are needed. This course introduces proven design mindsets, methods, and processes and demonstrates how to apply these to shaping digital products and services in health and social care. This includes giving students a foundation in gathering actionable insights, identifying challenges and opportunities in their contexts and designing and testing creative and impactful responses. These may range from digital products, services, interactions, to systems. The aim is to achieve better experiences and outcomes for both people using and delivering health services.
2) Outline of content
The course will be structured according to the phases of the double diamond design process (discover, define, develop, deliver) and culminate in a week of reflective activity. It will comprise:
Week 0
Introductory activity at pre course programme online learning and networking event: Overview, the value of design, and introduction to design mindsets and ways of working
Week 1: Discover
Understanding a specific challenge by reviewing and gathering qualitative and quantitative evidence. Using creative methods. From new service to old or new problem, to improving existing service for old or new problem.
+ Troubleshooting common challenges
Week 2: Define
Defining a problem. Understanding and using multiple perspectives on the problem space.
+ Troubleshooting common challenges
Week 3: Develop
Ideating, prototyping, iterating, testing
+ Troubleshooting common challenges
Week 4: Deliver
Change management, bringing people along throughout, managing stakeholders, continuous improvement, a dialogue with the world
+ Troubleshooting common challenges
Week 5: Reflect.
Clarify its not project management but a creative process. Strategic design, influence a big system with small actions, transformation
Golden Threads: collaboration, inclusion, creativity, critical thinking, communication, evaluating and using a variety of tools and methods, working with uncertainty, a safe space to experiment
3) Student learning experience
Design is, above all, a practice and the student learning experience will be active and interactive throughout the course. In Week 1, students will select a scenario to work through for the duration of the course and each week will be set collaborative activities and individual reflections relating to an aspect of the scenario.
Students will also access written and video materials, quizzes and engage with recommended readings. There will be weekly live sessions with guest experts and office hours for consultation with the course team.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Block 1 (Sem 1) |
| Course Start Date |
15/09/2025 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 5,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 1,
Online Activities 35,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 5,
Formative Assessment Hours 5,
Revision Session Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
46 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Reflective patchwork assignment |
| Feedback |
Students will gain formative feedback via regular self-assessment MCQs, pause and reflect activities and weekly discussion boards.
Feedback on summative assessed course work is provided within fifteen working days.
|
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Critically discuss and reflect on key theories, concepts, and principles in service design and how they apply to the challenges of digital transformation of health and social care in Scotland.
- Apply a range of design mindsets, methods, and processes to investigate challenges, identify opportunities, and develop responses that centre the needs of people
- Communicate design concepts clearly and effectively to diverse audiences in order to involve relevant people in designing, testing, iterating, and implementing them.
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Reading List
Recommended reading includes:
Downe, L. (2020). Good Services : how to Design Services that Work. Amsterdam: Bis Publishers.
Ivey-Williams, K. (2017). Death by double diamond. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/the-service-gazette/death-by-double-diamond-f79e43f9e753.
Jones, P. (2013). Design for Care. Rosenfeld Media.
Ku, B. and Lupton, E. (2022). Health Design Thinking, second edition. MIT Press.
Risdon, C. and Quattlebaum, P. (2018). Orchestrating experiences : collaborative design for complexity. Brooklyn, New York: Rosenfeld Media.
www.gov.scot. (n.d.). The Scottish Approach to Service Design (SAtSD). [online] Available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/the-scottish-approach-to-service-design/.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1) Mindsets
Enquiry and lifelong learning
Students on this course will be encouraged to seek out ways to develop their expertise in evaluation and appreciation for design f digital solutions for rural populations. They will also be encouraged to strive for excellence in their professional practice and to use established and developed approaches to resolve design/implementation issues as they arise in health and social care systems.
Aspiration and personal development
Students will be encouraged to draw on the quality, depth and breadth of their experiences to expand their potential and identify areas they wish to develop and grow. Students will also be encouraged to understand their responsibility within and contribute positively, ethically and respectfully to digital design.
Outlook and engagement
Students will be expected to take responsibility for their learning. Students will be asked to use their initiative and experience, often explicitly relating to their professional, educational, geographical or cultural context to engage with and enhance the learning of students from the diverse communities on the programme. Students will also be asked to reflect on the experience of their peers and identify opportunities to enhance their learning.
2) Skills
Research and enquiry
Students will use self-reflection to seek out learning opportunities. Students will also use the newly acquired knowledge and critical assessment to identify and creatively tackle problems and assimilate the findings of case studies and peer knowledge in their arguments, discussions and assessments.
Personal and intellectual autonomy
Students will be encouraged to use their personal and intellectual autonomy to critically evaluate learning materials and exercises. Students will be supported through their active participation in self-directed learning, discussion boards and collaborative activities to critically evaluate concepts, evidence and experiences of peers and superiors from an open-minded and reasoned perspective.
Personal effectiveness
Students will need to be effective and proactive learners that can articulate what they have learned, and have an awareness of their strengths and limitations, and a commitment to learning and reflection to complete this course successfully.
Communication
The structure of the interactive (problem-based learning examples, discussion boards and collaborative activities) and assessment elements incorporate constant reinforcement and development of these skills. |
| Keywords | Digital transformation,design,user-centred design,human centred design,design thinking. |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Miss Michelle Evans
Tel: (0131 6)51 5440.
Email: |
Course secretary | Ms Rosie Downs
Tel:
Email: |
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