Output details

Hospitalfoodie: An Inter-professional Case Study of the Redesign of the Nutritional Management and Monitoring System for Vulnerable Older Hospital Patients

Could the involvement of designer researchers and their methods help provide an innovative and workable food service prototype to address chronic nutritional problems in vulnerable older in-hospital patients? The Design Team worked with the project’s other specialisms (i.e. food science, dietetics, medical sociology, ergonomics, technology) in the design of the overall research methodology and for a series of interactive workshops for the many individuals involved in the process of assessment and care of patients and in preparing and delivering their food, (i.e. food producers, caterers, ward staff, nurses dieticians, physicians, speech and occupational therapists), as well as with older people representatives. Through ethnography and workshop-based methods, major opportunities and guiding principles for service improvement were identified. An iterative co-design and participative development process was deployed using mixed methods including ethnography, mapping, personas, storyboarding, role-playing, enactment, narratives and prototyping. The current food service for older adult hospital patients is contributing to significant problems in the UK resulting in unacceptable levels of malnutrition. The design team working within the three-year multi-disciplinary research ‘mappmal’ project, funded by the cross-council New Dynamics of Ageing programme through a competitive call, was concerned with redesigning the food service for vulnerable older hospital patients, particularly stroke, dementia and hip fracture. A demonstration prototype - 'hospitalfoodie' - of a new food and nutritional management system, able to meet individual patients’ daily requirements, was developed, refined and displayed in interactive exhibition format at a series of national conferences (nutrition, catering, design, gerontology, geriatrics) to gather further feedback. Early responses to this prototype and to a series of publications and public presentations were favourable and indicate, that with further development, ‘hospitalfoodie’ may offer the means for improving nutritional care standards in hospitals and also be adaptable for use across other patient groups.