The Use of a Multilevel System Model for Analyzing Stakeholders at Different Levels in Health Care Systems

Participatory design or co-design is defined as the active engagement of allstakeholders in a design process. However, in many co-design projects, only endusers are involved. Participants are often considered as the traditionalrepresentatives of a generalized stakeholder group, without prior analysis madeon each individual’s specific interest. These assumptions fail to captureopportunities for integration and satisfy multiple stakeholders simultaneously,which is required to design successful products in complex systems like healthcare. To maximize the benefit of collaboration, it is important for designers toimprove understanding of the participants and their role as a stakeholder in theirproduct’s ecosystem.This study aims to contribute to this understanding by discussing a potentialvisualization method that maps different stakeholders’interest in thedevelopment of new products within the health care system. The method isbased on a Multilevel Design Model and was tested by means of a researchbased-modeling approach, in which several design experts where asked to mapor position several design phenomena on a pre-defined template. Both theselection of the phenomena and the mapping results of the various expertswhere evaluated through comparison.A positive correlation was found between the type of expertise of the differentexperts, and their specific interest in the innovation system. This led to theconclusion that the visualisation method may prove to be a useful instrument foranalysing stakeholders at different levels of institutional and nontechnicalsystems. Therefore, it may potentially help to manage the problem of complexityand resolve equivocality in the design process.Applied Ergonomics and DesignDesign for SustainabilityOLD Management and OrganisationIndustrial Desig