MEDAL

In recent years, a new vision of Participatory Healthcare has emerged, in which individuals actively co-manage their health alongside clinicians, supported by technology and data. It emphasizes a transition from hospital-centered models to everyday care, with health management embedded in everyday routines such as nutrition, physical activity, emotional regulation, and social interaction. Digital health technologies, including wearables, remote monitoring devices, self-logging apps, and smart living environments, empower individuals to track physiological signals, behaviours, and lifestyle patterns. These personal life data enrich clinical insights and enable health guidance to become more personalised, adaptive, and preventive.

However, three key gaps still limit participation: maintaining consistent data collection, providing actionable interpretations, and seamlessly integrating data interactions into daily life. People often struggle to track data consistently because tools feel complex or unmotivating, leaving incomplete records. Raw data is also hard to interpret: standard charts rarely translate into clear, context-sensitive insights people can act on. And data interactions that disrupt daily routines quickly lose engagement, so monitoring, feedback, and reflection need to fit naturally into existing habits.

This project addresses these gaps by developing data-driven health interventions that make personal data meaningful, motivating, and seamlessly integrated into everyday life. Through two real-world case studies: one on chronic illness self-management with cardiovascular patients, and one on stress management in everyday settings, the consortium will design, prototype, and pilot-test interventions together with users, clinicians, and creative practitioners. From these case studies, we will distill a design framework and an open-source toolkit that designers and healthcare organisations can use to develop their own data-enabled solutions, with adaptation guidelines for transfer to other healthcare contexts such as diabetes and cancer care. We adopt a research-through-design approach because participatory healthcare requires rethinking how data, technology, and care integrate into everyday life. Working closely with creative-industry partners, including design studios, fashion-tech labs, and gamification experts, alongside hospitals and research institutes, the project translates abstract data into tangible,engaging, and trustworthy experiences that people will actually use.

This project exemplifies the Power of Design and Transitions by combining design research rooted in practice with interventions that accelerate the transition to participatory healthcare. Addressing these gaps is critical to realize the full potential of Participatory Healthcare, enabling individuals to actively co-manage their health while enhancing the clinician's ability to provide personalized, adaptive, and preventive care.