Improving Older Adults ’ Health: Creating Solutions With—Not For—Them

With the best of intentions, foundations and nonprofit organizations often design and support programs based on what they think the people they serve need and want. But in the end, they discover they have designed solutions that miss the mark—their programs aren’t used, and they don’t get the outcomes that they expected. So at the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York, we wanted to find out what was possible when we created solutions with people, rather than for them. That’s why we launched Aging by Design, a multiyear initiative to improve the health of older adults, which uses a process called Design Thinking. Design Thinking is an approach to solving complex problems that puts the needs of the people experiencing a problem at the core. It allows us to consider the experiences and perspectives of older adults in the communities we serve, generate and test ideas to meet their needs, and then implement innovative and practical solutions. From some of the Health Foundation’s previous work and research around the needs of older adults, particularly those who are frail, we learned that developing programs and interventions that reach this group of people can be challenging, to say the least. For example, many solutions are designed under the assumption that older adults can get to a location in their communities. Or there is the assumption of literacy, motivation, or cultural fit, without really knowing if people can read, are motivated, or share that cult...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Featured GrantWatch Organization and Delivery Aging Design Thinking Health Care Delivery Health Philanthropy Health Promotion and Disease PreventionGW Innovation older adults Social Determinants of Health Source Type: blogs