The development of a 'tailored intervention' to stimulate creative and innovative processes in interdisciplinary teams working within healthcare settings

Within the PWO study, the extent to which innovation of services or products within a residential care home can be achieved using the service design methodology was examined. The service design methodology lends itself well to addressing non-obvious and complex problems. Within the current social context, residential care centres are frequently confronted with important social challenges for which no unambiguous solution is available. In the context of Flemish residential care centres, the service design methodology has been little used to date.

In this project, the principle of Appreciative Inquiry is used as a guiding principle in which the residents of a department of a residential care centre identify the 'good practices' present. These are services or processes about which residents express satisfaction. This concerns, for example, personal care on admission or the activities offered by the residential care centre. Identifying these good practices is the starting point of the innovation process. Next, the step-by-step plan of the service design methodology is followed, actively using the co-design principle. This principle means that residents and stakeholders are actively involved during the innovation process. For example, the personal care on admission or the activity offer can develop further and become an innovative best practice. The final goal and the last step of the roadmap is the implementation of the developed best practice. This ultimately plays an important role in the benchmarking of the residential care home and also ensures a widely supported innovation that ultimately leads to excellent, quality and resident-centred care.