Next-Gen Community Health Services: University of Maryland Students Design Solutions

06 May Next-Gen Community Health Services: University of Maryland Students Design Solutions

Today, I had the great pleasure of being a guest of the students and faculty of the University of Maryland School of Public Health who pitched the results of their semester’s work in HLSA484, “Redesigning Community Health Care” class. The 5 teams of innovators applied design thinking principles as they embarked on highly-personalized journeys with citizens of Temple Hills Maryland to envision high-value programs for a new free health services clinic. These highly creative teams presented an amazing array of insights and customized approaches toward empathy/need-finding, ideation, and prototyping/testing of conceptualized solutions. I was really impressed with the depth of connections the teams made with the residents of this multi-cultural community.

The power of design thinking was on full display as these next-gen innovators unleashed an awesome composite of solutions for complex challenges in underserved communities. Faculty leaders presented the teams with ideas on partnering with stakeholders to explore options to work with the health center on further scaling of the concepts. Congrats to the students and Dean Chang of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center for a terrific day. May the force be with you!