In 2022, an intern collaborated with Renal Dieticians to improve the design of some information leaflets for patients around the topic of phosphorus. Nutrition and kidney health is important for renal patients to understand why it is important to eat healthy and how they can do so in ways that meet their needs and dietary preferences. The purpose of such information leaflets is to help support their consultant with Renal Dieticians about the simple and easy changes they can make. Building on the work of the previous project, the renal dieticians are keen to created a suite of templates to apply great designed layouts for patient information across their entire library of patient information leaflets. This project is ideal for one or two design students who enjoy publication layout, and are up for a challenge around how they can design a template/layout that can be used by a non-designer without compromising on the design!
Design for Health is an emerging discipline bringing together the disciplines of Design and Health. Good Health Design has been working in this space for several years now, and we are in the process of creating a video about Design for Health, showcasing the potential of design to have meaningful impact in healthcare. We are after a few students with skills in illustration and animation, who would be interested in joining this project. There are a variety of complexities in getting the right message across, so you'll have the opportunity to work with us and our close partners, incorporating feedback that will help lift your skills in creating content that captures complex concepts.
In 2021, one of our interns collaborated with the Charger Nurse Manager at Waitematā DHB’sNorth Shore Hospital to create the illustration graphics and layout for an information booklet called ‘Supporting you through a difficult time: Interrupting a pregnancy for medical reasons’. This was well-received, with the Charge Nurse being invited to present the work at a national conference in May 2022. They are currently in the final stages of getting this booklet printed and being used. They have been so delighted with the outcome, they are interested in collaborating again with one or two design students on a similar booklet, but for women who are choosing to end their unwanted pregnancy for social reasons. This version is not as sensitive as the original topic (that was for women who chose to end their wanted pregnancy due to the diagnosis of a severe foetal abnormality), but there this decision still requires women and their whānau to be well supported and cared for during the process. This project is ideal for a design student (or two) who has strong skills and enjoys publication layout and illustration.
When people have a stroke (a disruption to the blood flow in their brain), they can have changes to their physical and cognitive function (movement, strength, thinking, communication). The effects go beyond this though, impacting on how people feel, their identity, their mood, and their social relationships, which we refer to as ‘psychosocial well-being’. Stroke services do a great job of helping people recover physically and cognitively but there is currently a big gap in how services help people’s well-being.
Our colleagues are doing a study that is working to improve how services support well-being. To start, they have talked with clinicians, with managers, and with people impacted by stroke. Through these interviews, they have unpacked what currently happens in services, how, where and when well-being is addressed – and when it isn’t addressed. We are seeking a communication design student to help them convert this knowledge into a journey map that clearly demonstrates what is and isn’t happening in services, from different parties’ perspectives. This journey map will play an important role to help share with our participants what the current stroke services looks like, helping them reflect on this so they can help us identify the key places we should focus to try and improve care. This project will be ideal for a communication design student (or two) interested in infographic design and visualising information.
Medication information is often overwhelming and loaded with medical jargon. We had a student in 2020, explore a design for a more visual and patient friendly medication information leaflet – see that project here. In 2021, a group of three students developed this further, designing a template and beginning a more extensive revamped icon bank to represent various conditions, symptoms and side effects of common medications. We are seeking a few more design students who can pick up on the icon bank work and continue developing the full set, particularly taking onboard further feedback from consumers and integrating this into the design. Ideally the student(s) should be confident in illustration/icon design, and up for the challenge of illustrating complex medical conditions in ways that are visually understandable and accessible to those with low health literacy or for whom English is a second language. This project will be in collaboration with our external partner at the Institute for Innovation and Improvement (i3), Waitematā DHB. Learn more about i3 at i3.waitematadhb.govt.nz
