A blended approach to design education through clinical immersions and industry partnerships in design for healthcare

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by nayy☆

Contemporary design education aims to prepare students for workplace practice through studio-based learning that mirrors real-world conditions. Within design for healthcare, multidisciplinary collaboration across stakeholders adds significant complexity for educators. The paper proposes a hybrid model combining bottom-up clinical immersions for design research and top-down industry collaboration using sponsored briefs. It presents examples implemented in a predominantly online format in response to COVID-19.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Design and healthcare

Studio based and online learning

A blended approach to design education through clinical immersions and industry partnerships in design for healthcare Louise Kiernan, University of Limerick, Ireland Eoin White, University of Limerick, Ireland Kellie Morrissey, University of Limerick, Ireland Abstract Contemporary design education seeks to prepare students for the workplace through studiobased learning that replicates real world practice. Design problems in the workplace have become increasingly complex and one example of this is within the area of design for healthcare, which requires multidisciplinary collaboration between various stakeholders to build knowledge in order to create new products, services systems and spaces. The complexity of these roles creates challenges for design educators in preparing students for the workplace. This paper presents a hybrid approach to address this challenge by presenting a real-world approach to design education. This entails a bottom-up approach to facilitate design research ina clinical setting to gather rich insights and needs of the clinical setting along with a top-down industry collaboration with sponsored briefs to guide students through the requirements of developing solutions in a heavily regulated field. The paper outlines examples of this process and how it was achieved in a blended model that was predominantly online in response to the changed environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The advantages of this model are threefold, students gain deep knowledge and skills through collaborating with a variety of stakeholders within health care, they gain the opportunity to validate their designs through testing and feedback with these partners and lastly students develop the connections to create opportunities for further partnerships and employment. Keywords Real world practice, Design education, Design for healthcare, Clinical immersion, Industry collaboration. Introduction Design and healthcare Due to the many challenges faced by healthcare such as ageing populations, chronic diseases and pandemics, providers are looking to the services of designers to help with reimagining healthcare. These services range from designing medical devices and medical charts, to designing medical services for tackling pandemics, and the layout of operating theatres (Fairs, 2020) . A study conducted by Kiernan and Ledwith (2014) showed that product design graduates believe that design education needs be more aligned to the demands of industry and facilitate them with flexible and transferable skill sets to take advantage of the evolving role of the designer. Further criticisms labelled at design education is that few schools are adopting the trend towards interdisciplinary teamwork that takes place in industry and that design students are not well prepared with the knowledge and skills required for employment when they graduate (Medola et al., 2021; Yang et al., 2005) . It has also been shown that there is no great link between design practice and design education (Gajendar, 2003; Roald, 2006) . Bhavnani et al. (2017) argue that the transformation of Healthcare requires collaboration and a shared vision between various stakeholders to create models that are primarily patientcentered. Fry (2019) argues that co-creation and multidisciplinary teams are necessary in the design of healthcare products and services and advise an iterative, user-centered and holistic approach that considers the patient experience. They state co-creation with all stakeholders can challenge the hierarchy and silo-mentality that is ingrained in many healthcare organisations. The role of the designers has changed and this in turn poses further challenges for Design education. Park (2020) proposes five skills that designers can bring to developing solutions in healthcare: 1. Problem solving and the ability to deal with ambiguity; 2. Communicate skills to understand the needs of others and to communicate solutions; 3. Empathy fo

FAQs

What problem does the paper address in design education for healthcare?

It addresses the difficulty of preparing design students for complex workplace roles in design for healthcare, where multidisciplinary collaboration across stakeholders is required.

How does the hybrid approach combine clinical immersions and industry collaboration?

It uses bottom-up design research in clinical settings to uncover unmet needs, and top-down industry collaboration via sponsored briefs to guide students in regulated-field requirements and validation.

Why was the model implemented predominantly online?

The paper explains that it was adapted to the changed environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by nayy☆