Health Design Thinking, second edition: Creating Products and Services for Better Health

A practice-based guide to applying the principles of human-centered design to real-world health challenges; updated and expanded with post-COVID-19 innovations.


This book offers a practice-based guide to applying the principles of human-centered design to real-world health challenges that range from drug packaging to breast cancer detection. Written by pioneers in the field-Bon Ku, a physician leader in innovative health design, and Ellen Lupton, an award-winning graphic designer-the book outlines the fundamentals of design thinking and highlights important products, prototypes, and research in health design. This revised and expanded edition describes innovations developed in response to the COVID-19 crisis, including an intensive care unit in a shipping container, a rolling cart with intubation equipment, and a mask brace that gives a surgical mask a tighter seal.

The book explores the special overlap of health care and the creative process, describing the development of such products and services as a credit card-sized device that allows patients to generate their own electrocardiograms; a mask designed to be worn with a hijab; improved emergency room signage; and a map of racial disparities and COVID-19. It will be an essential volume for health care providers, educators, patients, and designers who seek to create better experiences and improved health outcomes for individuals and communities.