The current system in place that the VA uses to treat veterans with chronic pain is inefficient and impractical. Access to health care and support needs to be made more accessible to veterans. However, current social landscapes and interactions prevent proper treatment and upkeep.
I worked with Tom Garncarz and Aubrey Henderson-Woods to try and develop a social design strategy that leverages communities surrounding the problem of veteran opioid abuse to create solutions that are able to mitigate or solve said problem. Due to the intimate and experiential nature of this topic, rather than utilize a “traditional” design approach, we aim to incorporate domain experts into the design process, thereby scaffolding their own design ideas rather than injecting our own.
Based on our research and observations, we determined that by preventing veterans from getting addicted to opioids in the first place, and successfully intervening if they are or happen to become addicted, would be a great starting point to pitch to our stakeholders.
Duration: 2 weeks
Design and research methods: Scenarios, value-flow model, block diagram, cultural model