Radical co-design for earliest design stage of complex biomedical information systems

A study was conducted to assess how co-design methods from industrial design engineering can be used for design of complex biomedical information systems (CBIS). The aim was toidentify (hidden) human factors problems, and to identify new technologies and organisational changes. Two cases were analysed and the design process was modelled. First case: design of a radiology workstation – a virtual reality system was designed which integrated work throughout the hospital and for various medical tasks besides diagnostics. Second case: design of the alarm situation at the intensive care unit – a quiet alarm system was proposed. The ‘radical co-design’ method follows a systems approach and resides in the earliest stage of design. Normally this stage is conducted informally in CBIS. In radical co-design, a set of design (research) techniques is used in a controlled manner. In following strict development (depending on selected technologies and organisation) practitioners, scholars, industry and policy makers should take responsibility and should collaborate to reverse the identified problems in targeted actions.