Development of Healthcare Service Design Concepts for NICU Parental Education

The objective of this study was to develop healthcare service design concepts through an empirical study utilizing design thinking to improve the quality of caregiver education provided in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). This study adopted the Double Diamond Process of service design comprising the discover, define, and development stages. We identified 7 issues, organized into 10 healthcare service design concepts associated with NICU education: improving the design of educational material, improving materials for high-risk infant guidance, a practicum kit, a parent proficiency checklist, a systematic parent education manual, predictable guidelines for tests and treatment plans, waiting time that provides comfort, message cards that convey feelings, a reservation system for visits, and a post-discharge information sharing platform. The service concepts’ effectiveness was verified through evaluations by healthcare experts. The results represent customers’ perspectives and experiences regarding parental education. The application of the healthcare service design method could be further developed in future studies. The 10 service concepts derived from this study can be applied and evaluated as specific NICU educational programs.