Design Thinking Pain Management: Tools to Improve Human-Centered Communication Between Patients and Providers

This research explores the role of design thinking to improve pain management for patients and providers. Specifically, using a design thinking approach, we aimed to transform pain management from a unidimensional construct measured on traditional pain scales to a social transaction between patients and caregivers, through recognizing the behavioral, psychosocial, and environmental aspects of pain. To do so, we conducted a two-phase study which involved first developing a pain assessment intervention in the form of a novel Android-based pain management application. The novel application was prototyped and developed with a multidisciplinary team. This application was then tested with 10 post-operative patients and 10 registered nurses at Stanford Health Care. Our initial findings demonstrate that patients and nurses were able to communicate pain needs through the use of the novel application. Future studies will assess the concomitant changes in care delivery. The proposed work impacts design thinking research through studying the use of technology to (1) solve a multi-dimensional problem involving complex thoughts and sensory features in individual patients; (2) improve communication and healthcare team performance; and (3) influence behavior change in situations requiring shared medical decision-making between patients and providers.