Business + Design Thinking Applied to Healthcare
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
The Rotman School of Management and Mayo’s Center for Innovation recently sponsored a business design challenge for graduate students. The idea is to deeply integrate MBA style business acumen with the creativity of design thinking to produce breakthrough insights. The challenge was to:
“Develop a new offering targeted at a specific patient population that will enable that population to improve their prospects for a healthy future.”
According to the post, The Rotman Design Challenge, the contest attracted some 19 teams from around the US and Canada. Five students from the Masters program in strategic foresight and innovation at the Ontario College of Art and Design won with the concept of Mayo Moms:
“Overlooking the intense emotions so often sparked by the topic of breastfeeding, the project envisioned Mayo as a facilitator, not a provider of healthcare per se. By certifying women who’d previously breastfed successfully as “Mayo Moms” and partnering them with mothers-to-be within the community, the students both leveraged Mayo’s brand and pointed to the creation of a potentially limitless social network.”
It will be interesting to see if this program is implemented. Getting individuals and groups more directly involved in wellness and prevention is something we clearly need to figure out – STAT.
