Designing the future of integrated healthcare and care – our collaboration with Umeå Institute of Design

Remote consultations through augmented reality and better sleep through ai. These are some of the concepts of integrated healthcare and care in 2030, made by interaction design students at Umeå Institute of Design.

The collaboration between iHAC and Umeå Institute of Design during autumn 2021- January 2022 resulted in four concepts of integrated healthcare and care. The concepts provide a futuristic perspective on what integrated healthcare and care can look like in year 2030 and contribute to the Nordic Vision 2030.

“It is amazing to see the ideas developed by the student groups, and how natural it is for the teams to include integrated healthcare and social care service model options.” – Bengt Andersson, Senior Advisor, Welfare technology, Nordic Welfare Centre, Sweden

The concepts have been developed with a rural point of view. To get insight in how healthcare and care currently is conducted in rural areas, the students made a study trip to Storuman, a rural municipality in Region Västerbotten. Visits were made to the local cottage hospital and Centre for Rural Medicine.

Explore the students’ visions of integrated healthcare and care

On Umeå Institute of Design’s course webpage you will find videos, pictures and information explaining the four concepts. Explore the visions here. 

What will happen next

iHAC will during 2022 use the concepts to facilitate round table discussions to develop tailored integrated healthcare and social care models. Discussions will apply the point of view of the citizens, still involve healthcare and social care planners and workers.