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Diagram believes that innovative healthcare research cannot be distilled to a repeatable process, but needs to be custom fit to the needs of a service, product or population.

HOW WE PARTNER

Participatory Research Methods

Our research methods have evolved over 20 years of healthcare experience, but from the beginning we have strived to ensure that our interactions provoke creativity from our participants because these are the seeds of innovation. We use designed stimuli and curate discussions that asks members of a community, patients and health care professionals to participate as experts in the design process, not to be designers themselves.

Our approach does not focus on validation but partnership that informs development and reduces risk along the process. We are mindful of the visible and invisible hierarchies that exist in healthcare and use methods of appreciative inquiry that focuses not solely on what’s not working but also on what could be.

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Matching the right research design to your research question

One of the biggest challenges to innovative healthcare research is finding the right research approach. This is because there are often multiple factors to consider when determining the best research path. Factors such as the speed of the decision that needs to be made are oftentimes weighed with equally important factors such as the profile of the research participant. We can help design a study that optimizes your return based on your needs.

Our research arsenal focuses on creative, participatory, collaborative and community-centered methods that allows us to design with people rather than for them. We find ways to include those affected by gaps in care, be it patients or communities, early and often to ensure that voices are not lost in the development process of services and products. From the scientists and engineers who formulate the way a patient might administer a therapy to the doctors and primary investigators who seek to work with underserved communities we work together to build research programs that uncover the most critical needs.

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Develop Programs and People that Amplify the Patient Voice

Integrating the patient perspective may be a mandate for teams, but it is not often clear how to do this in a way that creates impact and informs decisions. From the patient side they often have a lifetime of experiences to share in a short time and are not provided the space to shape their stories into opportunity spaces for innovation.

Diagram’s experiences are in incorporating the patient voice in the purest way—from their mouths to the ears of those that are making the decisions. Whether that’s a strategic worksession or speaking to the FDA, we work with patients to become ambassadors of their condition and speak to people in positions of power. We translate patients’ unique values into stories that create meaning that teams can use to not only drive solutions but also connect to their ideas. We believe this creates reciprocal relationships that are critical in making healthcare better.

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