Sharedcare : Design Oriented Innovation Scan of Informal Health

Shared Care is a paradigm shift that addresses informal health, which probes into health for the healthy and care that is non-institutional. A shift from ‘my health is my problem’ to informal care systems based on proximity and trust. The community is mutually responsible for the health of its members and shares common goals of wellbeing. A growing population in urban contemporary cities, as they transition through different phases of life are not foreseeing the effects of place, social support and care in their long term wellbeing. With the lack of faith in a healthcare system that equates good care to insurance, the opportunity is to move away from problem & symptom-based, fee-for-service care to focus on preventative care that lies outside of the current system in the US. The hypothesis that guided the research considered the intersection between health and social as an alternate / complimentary approach to preventive care as understood today. By using design as a research tool, rich narratives of personas were created that enabled crystallizing the potential to shift from the ‘me’ to the ‘we’ paradigm of one’s wellbeing. Disclosing emergent spaces where service design can be used as an entrepreneurial approach to envision solutions that enable informal support systems between weak tied individuals based on physical proximity. Motivations, infrastructure and characteristics of designing for these emergent spaces in housing, mobility, work life, food systems and sociality, were identified as holistic components of ones overall wellbeing. By applying the ‘we’ paradigm framework to the design of services we can further investigate the transition towards health related sociality within communities.