Designing Healthcare Services with a Patient-Centred Mindset
Trainer
Gerry Scullion
Trainer
Avril Copeland
Explore how to design healthcare services with a future-focused, patient-first mindset. Co-led by Gerry Scullion and Avril Copeland, this course blends service design and healthcare innovation for meaningful impact.
Enquire about this course
Interactive & hands-on
Designed for real engagement with practical exercises and collaborative learning.
Built for all levels
Whether you're new to the topic or an experienced practitioner, the course meets you where you are.
Guided & grounded
We move from concepts into practice in a thoughtfully paced way, weaving stories, exercises, and tools together.
Practical takeaways
You'll leave equipped with frameworks, tools, and confidence to apply what you've learned immediately.
Course Overview
This course is designed for innovators working within the healthcare space—whether in large pharma, health tech, or early-stage startups—who are seeking new ways to rethink services through the lens of service design.
Co-led by Gerry Scullion (Humana Design) and Avril Copeland (ex-CEO of Inner Strength Health), the course will focus on how service design can address the complex needs of patients, families, clinicians, and organisations alike. You’ll gain tools to uncover hidden pain points in patient journeys and learn to prototype improvements that also align with commercial and operational goals.
What You'll Learn
1. Understanding the Patient Journey Beyond the Obvious
We’ll guide you in mapping real patient experiences—from diagnosis to discharge and beyond—exposing the often-overlooked nuances that affect trust, outcomes, and satisfaction. You’ll learn how to identify gaps where innovation can meaningfully reduce suffering and confusion.
2. Designing Services That Work in the Real World
Learn how to co-design with clinicians, patients, and stakeholders to build services that are implementable, scalable, and ready for the complexity of healthcare systems. You’ll gain methods to ensure innovations aren’t just user-friendly, but system-ready.
3. Making the Business Case for Human-Centred Innovation
Discover how to align innovation strategies with organisational KPIs, investment goals, and policy environments—translating patient needs into tangible value. You’ll be equipped to tell the story of patient-centred innovation in boardrooms and pitch decks alike.
Get in touch to learn more
Designing Healthcare Services with a Patient-Centred Mindset
Local taxes may apply.
What You'll Get
What You Will Get:
- Access to live sessions and case-based content led by Gerry Scullion and Avril Copeland
- Practical templates and tools for mapping, prototyping, and validating healthcare services
- Peer community of like-minded innovators across healthcare, pharma, and med-tech
- Lifetime access to all course materials and recordings
- Certificate of Completion
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is this course for?
This course is for anyone working in healthcare innovation—whether you’re in a startup looking to raise investment or inside a large pharma organisation driving service transformation.
Do I need experience in service design or healthcare?
No. While a familiarity with either topic helps, we break everything down so you can meaningfully engage regardless of your background. All you need is a commitment to improving patient experiences.
Will I need a computer?
Yes. This course includes interactive exercises, templates, and collaboration tools. For the best experience, we recommend a stable internet connection and access to a computer.
Have a question not listed here?
Please get in touch with us at support@thisishcd.com – and we will be more than happy to help you!
Your Trainers
Gerry Scullion
Trainer
Founder of The Human Centered Design Network / Podcaster at This is HCD Gerry Scullion is Founder of This is HCD, a global podcast and global design community. This is HCD includes a large international design focussed newsletter, podcasts on topics to enable change, an international Slack community, Design Conference and online design training. He has over 20-years professional design experience across a range of industries such as finance, healthcare, media, public services, social media and various startups. He contributed to the book ‘This is Service Design Doing’ (O’Reilly 2018) focusing on chapters about effective prototyping, and embedding Service Design teams within organisations alongside 200 service designers from around the globe. His purpose is to help enable access to strategic design to a global audience. Speak to Gerry about Service Design, Embedding Design into organisations and Human-Centered Design.
Avril Copeland
Trainer
Avril Copeland is a Healthcare Specialist.
Interested in this course?
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