‘Digital Imagination’ series: imagining a digital dermatology future

In this blog Chaloner Chute and Dr Tara French share the first of a series of scenarios developed from the outputs of co-design on the future of digital health and social care. 

The ‘Digital Imagination’ series presents a collection of experience-led scenarios resulting from co-design and innovation projects in Scotland. The scenarios articulate the potential of digital in future health and social care – including the value, impact and implications on future interactions and experiences. Each scenario involves 3 composite ‘stories’ told from different perspectives of people across the health and social care landscape. The stories are presented in the style of a structured and unstructured persona to depict key challenges and opportunities. Through a scenario, we show how the stories interact and the interdependencies between needs and capabilities.

What is a composite story? Composite stories are a technique used to reflect the experiences of different people in a single story. In this work, the stories have been created from lived experience co-design work involving people with different experiences of accessing and providing care and support in Scotland.

In the first blog of the series we share a scenario focusing on a future virtual clinic using a dermatology example. The scenario includes stories from: a person with a routine need, a specialist working in a hospital setting and an industry software developer working on new digital health and care tools.

You can read the full paper on the scenario and stories for a future virtual clinic here.

The composite stories were created from the insights and concepts emerging from DHI funded co-design projects including the Modern Outpatient, Diabetes, AI dermatology work; projects funded through the Scottish Access Collaborative.

Previous work has also identified a set of common ‘user requirements’ for person-centred digital care which articulate needs from the perspectives of people accessing and people providing care and support (Chute, French, Raman, Bradley 2022). The digital dermatology scenario meets the needs of:

User requirement for person-centred digital care	Dermatology scenario (people with a routine need perspective)
Trust in how others use my personal information	When the GP takes a picture of part of my body, and I can consent for its use by a dermatologist (primary use) and for it to be used for research and development by the industry software developer (secondary use).
Have an ongoing dialog with professionals outside of formal appointments, allowing me to ask questions on my own terms	When a dermatologist gets in touch to discuss my needs, without me having to attend an appointment. This means I have the time and space to focus on what I need and communicate this effectively.
Help me and the individual understand their condition better through the joint recording of, and access to, personal symptoms, triggers, medications, and test results	When I can take, view, and share my own pictures and symptom diary to help both of us track the progress of my treatment. A dermatologist can help more people in this way, assisted by data-driven tools developed by the industry software developer.

This approach shows the interrelationship across the stories and networked opportunities for digital health and care. The scenario helps us understand the data journey and how a whole system design can better meet the different needs surfaced through each story.

What do the stories and scenarios mean to you?

The Digital Imagination series helps people to imagine and design person-centred ‘digital’ care. The collection of scenarios and stories have been created based on a range of engagement and co-design projects. These have involved people with experience of accessing support for their health and wellbeing, people working across health and social care, and wider stakeholders across organisational sectors, academia, industry, and policy.

The series has been created for people involved in digital health and care.

• ·For people accessing care and support the scenarios and stories can help to imagine what a digital future could look like and how person-centred digital care can be achieved.

• ·For people providing care and support the scenarios and stories can help to imagine how digital could be integrated in service design and provision, enabling joined up approaches to working leading to positive and efficient working experiences.

• For people trying to improve the system the scenarios and stories give insight into how future policy and projects can be better designed to achieve impact.

To share your reflections or find out more – please contact:

Chal.chute@dhi-scotland.com and tara.french@gov.scot

Scenario and Stories Illustration Credit: Tessa Mackenzie