Health Futures

Health Futures

The Health Futures research stream focuses on designing, developing and activating health futures that are safe, equitable, integrated, sustainable and attuned to diverse needs. Our research leverages expertise in the co-design of health systems, services and technologies to generate new insights, possibilities and solutions for complex health systems. We operate on principles of interdisciplinarity and partnership, working with industry, multilaterals, governments, healthcare providers and lived experience consumers to envisage and build optimal health futures for our communities, both local and global.

Our work operates across multiple scales, commencing with a deep understanding of the lived experience of users of health systems, both recipients and providers of care; engaging with and shaping the technological infrastructure for health; co-designing new models and systems for care; and at the policy level, co-designing Principles and Guidelines to support the realisation of optimal health futures. We integrate work across these scales into applied, impact-driven research that seeks to improve health and care across multiple metrics. The Health Futures research stream works with healthcare partners locally and globally, including with the World Health Organisation, to collaboratively envisage and design optimal health futures for all.  

Coalescing stakeholder communities

Developing inclusive, safe, equitable, integrated and sustainable health futures requires nuanced understanding of complex stakeholder ecosystems (including governments, patients, carers, healthcare workers, industry etc.) and involves leveraging approaches to engaging and mapping complex stakeholder ecosystems. Envisaging preferable health futures also demands interdisciplinary collaboration, the ability to coalesce diverse disciplines and integrate highly specialised forms of socio-technical knowledge. Our work is participatory in nature and encompasses:

• coalescing stakeholder communities in long-term sequenced co-design processes
• inventing, testing and evaluating design tools and methods to support co-design of preferable health futures with diverse communities
• innovating in new forms of interdisciplinary collaboration across engineering, IT, medicine, design and the social sciences
• devising new ways to map and explore the complexity of health systems across multiple metrics (social, economic, clinical, technological, ecological) in ways that balance the needs and experiences of multiple stakeholder groups.

Shaping emerging technologies

Emerging technologies are driving health futures and enabling new models and systems of care, ranging from personalised medicine through to care delivered in the home, supported by wearable and nearable devices. Co-designing the inputs to technology development ensures that the needs of multiple stakeholder groups are harmonised with innovation drivers. Our research is focused on the mechanisms that drive emerging technologies to ensure they are better suited to the diverse needs of people and the planet. This includes:

• leading the human centred design of wearable and nearable devices
• co-design of user experience inputs for digital health and web-based platforms to support equity and access
• development of futures-focused capability development for technologists working at the coalface of technology development (e.g. in biosensors, med tech, nanotechnology) to support human centred development of healthcare applications.

Co-designing new systems and models of care

With a deep understanding of complex stakeholder communities and engagement with future and emerging technologies, this work is centred on co-designing future models and systems of care, incorporating the inputs of consumers, carers, clinicians, governments, technologists, industry and other actors to envisage optimal health futures. Engaging diverse stakeholder communities enables us to balance the social and the technological, envisaging future focused socio-technical systems with our healthcare partners that service diverse needs.

Co-designing Principles and Policy

Our work at the Policy scale seeks to support the potential of inclusive, safe, equitable, integrated and sustainable health futures by co-designing Principles and Guidelines to support the development of future applications. At the domestic level, this research brings together diverse stakeholder communities to co-design Design Principles to support future health infrastructure, digital health applications, systems and services. At the global level, our work with the WHO brings together stakeholders across many countries to understand barriers and enablers to implementation of health guidance, and to co-design the WHO Design Principles to improve usability and impact of WHO Guidelines.

Associate Director, Health Futures

Associate Professor Leah Heiss

Are you interested in partnering with us?

Get in contact with our Research Program Lead to discuss how we can start a research project with you.