The second issue of Touchpoint focuses on one of the most relevant topics of our time: Health Preserving and restoring health is of major concern for the life of all humans.

Most healthcare systems are attempting to deliver services that are efficient, effective, and value for money. To this end, there is a continual emphasis on how the delivery of services can be changed or improved.

The National Health Service (NHS) is the national healthcare provider in the UK. It is the fourth largest organisation in the world employing 1.3 million people through a wide range of organisations including hospitals, General Practise surgeries, and ambulance services.

Exploring new ways of working. London Borough of Southwark is one of 33 local government authorities in London. The Council provides more than 200 services, including health, to their 275,000 residents.

An Interview Daniela Sangiorgi and Valerie Carr

Quality was at the centre of service research for the last decades. One of the main achievements of researchers in this field has been to devise ways to help organisations enhance service quality.

How do you design a hospital so that it delivers good service – for patients, relatives, and staff? And save money? At Denmark’s largest hospital, Service Design is proving to be a powerful healing force.

Bob Cooper is the founder and President of Frontier Service Design, a US consulting firm that he has launched after 25 years of experience in marketing, branding, technology development, interactive media, business design and executive leadership.

An interview with Teresa Huber, Service Designer at PremiaMed Management, and Julian Hadschieff, CEO PremiaMed Management

The Center for Tobacco Free Living is the result of an innovation project conducted for the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center that illustrates two Service Design process issues – the importance of the initial design challenge question and deciding what, and what is not in the scope of the project.

A memorable patient experience is key to a hospital’s success. Brand positioning is all about creating a unique, relevant, and attractive offering to your customer that makes you stand out of the crowd.

User-centered design offers effective methods for research, design, and validation. But when complexity overwhelms, systems design can help bring order into the problem-solving challenge.

Every healthcare experience is formed from a collection of interacting systems. Much has been written about the operational, technological, diagnostic, and treatment structures of healthcare delivery.

If we found ourselves in a situation where we needed assistance and medical care to manage our daily life, most of us would prefer to live in our own home as long as possible.

Today’s Dutch healthcare is faced with many challenges.

This is the story of how research evolved into a co-created community directory of services produced by a multidisciplinary research team within Intel’s Digital Health Group, and the Stoneybatter community.

The following customer profile tells about a carer and her father, from Kuopio, Finland. The profile is based on interviews with experts and elderly people living at home with the help of family care, observations, and survey of quality of elder services.