Why All For-Impact Organizations Need to Design with Dignity

September 23, 2014 - Anne Jaconette

At Possible, we think a lot about design.

Just as industrial designers want their products to be innovative, understandable, honest, and long-lasting, so do we. The only difference is our “product” is high-quality, dignified healthcare and our “user” is a patient in need.

When designing something as vital as healthcare, we need to create efficient, effective systems for our patients. Design is such an integral component to the work we do, that we built it into our For-Impact Culture Code: “Good design is not a luxury—it’s a powerful and real priority in everything we do.”

Creating programs that are innovative, understandable, honest, and long-lasting improves patient care and produces remarkable results.

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Design is Innovative

You don’t have to look far to see that healthcare is broken. Models of healthcare designed by the private sector are expensive and fail to provide treatment for those who need it most. Alternatively, public models can provide for a large number of people, but often fail to deliver on quality of care.

We’ve implemented a new system design called Durable Healthcare, which combines components of the private, public, and philanthropic sectors to provide high-quality, low-cost healthcare to the world’s poor. By taking the most effective pieces of these models, we’re able to design patient-focused systems of healthcare.

We also use innovative programs to provide patient-focused care. Our partnership with Watsi uses the power of crowdfunding to pay for advanced medical treatments. When a patient cannot afford a procedure, Watsi posts their story and photo online with his or her permission. Through this referral system, donors become connected to an individual who receives the referral care they need.

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Design is Understandable

Our manifesto begins with a simple, honest statement: “Healthcare is broken.” This drives us to produce remarkable results, committing to the belief that a new approach is necessary in order to provide healthcare to the world’s poor. By designing a manifesto, we do more than articulate our work—we attract partners and supporters who have the same vision for high-quality, low-cost healthcare.

 

Design is Honest

We designed 6 Key Performance Indicators to identify our impact. They measure access to surgery, equity, safe births, follow up care, outpatient use, and family planning. We publish these numbers in our Quarterly and Annual Impact Reports, allowing our team to identify missed insights, revise strategies, and be transparent about our work.

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Design is Long-Lasting

We’re building a durable healthcare system that can scale. Patient demand at our hospital increased from 21,585 in 2012 to 56,106 in 2014. With the next nearest hospital a 12-hour bus ride away, we’re transforming it into an accredited teaching hospital. This will increase clinical space and significantly impact the number of patients we can care for.

(See the Teaching Hospital we are building.)

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Great Design = Dignity

We’re designing a healthcare system that meets our moral aspirations. Like our Culture Code states, everything we build, from a hospital to a business card, has real implications for the dignity of our patients and the effectiveness of our impact.

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