The Use of a Multilevel System Model for Analyzing Stakeholders at Different Levels in Health Care Systems

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Abstract

Participatory design or co-design is defined as the active engagement of all
stakeholders in a design process. However, in many co-design projects, only end
users are involved. Participants are often considered as the traditional
representatives of a generalized stakeholder group, without prior analysis made
on each individual’s specific interest. These assumptions fail to capture
opportunities for integration and satisfy multiple stakeholders simultaneously,
which is required to design successful products in complex systems like health
care. To maximize the benefit of collaboration, it is important for designers to
improve understanding of the participants and their role as a stakeholder in their
product’s ecosystem.
This study aims to contribute to this understanding by discussing a potential
visualization method that maps different stakeholders’interest in the
development of new products within the health care system. The method is
based on a Multilevel Design Model and was tested by means of a researchbased-
modeling approach, in which several design experts where asked to map
or position several design phenomena on a pre-defined template. Both the
selection of the phenomena and the mapping results of the various experts
where evaluated through comparison.
A positive correlation was found between the type of expertise of the different
experts, and their specific interest in the innovation system. This led to the
conclusion that the visualisation method may prove to be a useful instrument for
analysing stakeholders at different levels of institutional and nontechnical
systems. Therefore, it may potentially help to manage the problem of complexity
and resolve equivocality in the design process.