The Cultural Resistance - Introducing Human-Centred Design to Healthcare felt like teaching jazz to a classical orchestra. Healthcare organisations operate on precision, protocols, and patient safety—concepts that seem to conflict with design thinking's iterative, ambiguous approach. Unclear outputs and design ambiguity made stakeholders uncomfortable—they expected detailed specifications, not exploratory prototypes.

The Stakeholder Challenge - Multiple stakeholders with conflicting agendas made every decision complex. Clinical staff prioritised patient safety, administrators focused on efficiency, and executives needed merger success metrics. Meanwhile, healthcare red tape and privacy concerns created barriers to traditional UX research methods.

What I Did to Drive Change:

Daily Transparency Built Trust - I hosted daily debriefs, sharing insights, learnings, and patient stories from research. This constant communication transformed scepticism into curiosity as stakeholders saw the human impact behind operational challenges.

Visual Roadmaps Drove Alignment - I established early drafts of the experience roadmap with heavy visual emphasis. Journey maps and service blueprints made abstract concepts tangible, driving immediate reactions and stakeholder alignment.

Participation Created Advocates - Rather than presenting to stakeholders, I brought them into the HCD process. Clinical staff participated in patient interviews, administrators observed workflow mapping, and executives contributed to the ideation process. When people help create the solution, they become invested in its success.

The Result - Healthcare stakeholders transformed from design sceptics to HCD advocates, establishing their internal design team and applying human-centred methodology to future patient experience challenges.