The Design for Care Book Club

The Design for Care book project has drawn a community of nearly 250 participants and reviewers bearing remarkable resemblance to the intended audience. Rosenfeld readers are welcomed to join the “book club” at Designforcare.com

The purpose of the community was originally to facilitate discussions among design professionals in healthcare to help inform the currency of the eponymous book and
support case studies. It is serving this original purpose well. But the online community has also emerged as a communications platform for designers, systems and big idea people, and healthcare professionals. The cross-connections are as valued as the direct contributions.

So what are we becoming now, as we close in on 250 members? The community has turned into more than a book support site, and I’m not sure what we’re becoming yet. It is starting to look like a community of service design thinkers interested in healthcare.

Some prominent healthcare designers and bloggers are on Designforcare.com, including Amy Tenderich (DiabetesMine) who has invited me as a design judge for their next innovation contest, and Alexandra Carmichael (CureTogether) who’s created a resource for real-world patient-sourced health research. And be sure to check out Mark Hurst’s Good Experience if you (by some chance) are new to his ideas and projects.

There are other Ning and community sites represented, and we’ve been exchanging a lot recently with with the WENOVSKI Design Thinkers, which has a strong service design orientation. There are some folks from the HealthCamps, one of which I’ve participated in, here in Toronto.

There may be others on the site I’ve overlooked, and you may have a group to connect us to as well. Please do! You know where to find us.