The Participatory Zeitgeist in Health Care: It is Time for a Science of Participation

Participation in health care is currently the zeitgeist/spirit of our times. A myriad of practices characterizes this “participatory Zeitgeist” in contemporary health care, which range from patients and professionals collaborating as partners in service delivery and treatment decision-making, to crowdsourced cures and participation in online communities, to using health apps, to involvement in health care quality improvement initiatives for systems redesign using coproduction and co-design methods. To date, patient engagement and participation in online communities and the use of apps have received a good deal of attention in participatory medicine. However, there has been a less critical examination of participation in health care planning, design, delivery, and improvement. In the face of what Thomas Kuhn called a scientific revolution, we are presented with the opportunity to re-examine some of the assumptions underpinning participation in health care and some of the emerging anomalies and weaknesses in the current science. This re-examination will allow the development of a new paradigm, a science of participation. In this science, we can systematically test, refine, and advance participation in health care to build a unifying language and theories from across the interdisciplinary fields of participatory design, medicine, and research to develop and test models to explain impacts and outcomes. A science of participation will allow the emergent and unexplained facts to be addressed in the current participatory mood of health care planning, design, delivery, and improvement.