My Research Journey

During my journey as a researcher, I have had opportunities to work with multi-disciplinary teams and get to know people with different research interests, backgrounds, and experiences. I have heard of and seen many inspiring academic journeys. These stories have helped me find my own research interest and have opened doors in the healthcare field—not only in Finland but also abroad. In 2014, after completing my health-related master’s thesis in service design, I knew I wanted to dig deeper into the healthcare field, not knowing how overwhelmed I would be by the number of important and urgent challenges .

A typical tendency for service designers is to observe services around you—especially the ones in which you are very interested. This happens to me, too. I passionately observe healthcare services, with which I and people close to me come in contact. I conducted unofficial empirical research, for example, in an emergency polyclinic in Cape Town, South Africa, after I had badly injured my hamstring; in a small clinic in Vancouver, Canada, when I had high fever; and also, in my hometown of Rovaniemi when I had terrible stomach pain. I observed the healthcare my dear grandfather received in his last years. Observation has been surprisingly successful, but it has included many sad stories from people around me. People have been willing to share their experiences with me because of my research interest, knowing that due to ethical considerations, I must keep their stories inside me and not make them part of my research. Those stories have pushed me to continue my research and have reminded me many times why I am doing this. They have given me motivation to continue even though the road has been rocky. Here, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to those anonymous people.

The complex healthcare PhD journey was not straightforward. I was overwhelmed with the numerous interesting areas and caring processes to consider. I wanted to start with palliative care and end-of-life experiences, but I realized quite soon that I was not ready to jump into that dark water. I replanned my research and decided to study hospital construction projects

and new hospital design through a service design lens, but I realized that those projects would take too many years to complete. I needed to rethink and adapt. Another door opened, and I had an opportunity to be part of an international team, where we co-designed healthcare through design sprints. That path was an excellent opportunity and helped me to better focus my research objectives. I knew that my research scope was broad but valuable for healthcare and a wider audience.

I have completed many projects, case studies, and study courses in the healthcare field and have trained healthcare professionals for service design in hospitals. Yet there are a few things that continue to surprise me.

Over the years, I have been questioned repeatedly about the relevance of service design by healthcare professionals asking what service designers can do without having an overall understanding of the internal processes of a hospital or how design approaches can really change things as complex as healthcare processes. Even though these direct questions were indicative of legitimate concerns, I also saw that they reflected a genuine curiosity about service design, which ultimately led to opportunities to conduct the case studies and workshops in the field of healthcare in different development projects. In healthcare, I have also heard comments like “I didn’t know that our patients think in that way” (field notes), and even close associates have said, “I have not dared to share this experience earlier to anyone” (field notes). I have also seen that there have been some limitations, from a hospital perspective, to bringing patients into the co-design for the very first time. However, when this step has been taken, the feedback from the healthcare professionals has been very positive, and they have been willing to co-design more with patients. Last but definitely not least, I have witnessed the change in how healthcare practitioners and professionals see the value of and opportunities in design methods. They have been surprised not only by the concrete and visual tools’ ability to help them perceive the complexities but also the outcomes of the design process. It is not only the service innovation implemented in everyday practice but also the learning and change to what has happened during the process that have been the most gratifying for me.

Indeed, my journey has not been clear and straightforward and it may well be illustrated with the same fuzzy front end picture that I have introduced in the theories of my research. The following Figure 1 shows my research journey and its timeline.

2015

Applying for the Doctoral studies 2016–2018

Working in Critical communication, safety, and human-centered services of the future research (CRICS) project funded by Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.

The case studies 1 and 2 in sub-study I were contributed for the project.

2018

Starting work as a junior researcher at the University of Lapland.

Miettinen, S., & Alhonsuo, M.

Service designing a new hospital for Lapland Hospital District.

2020 / Article 3:

Alhonsuo, M., Hookway, S., Sarantou, M., Miettinen, S., & Motus, M. Healthcare design sprints: What can be changed and achieved in five days?

2020 / Article 4:

Alhonsuo, M., Sarantou, M., Hookway, S., Miettinen, S., & Motus, M. Participation of healthcare representatives in support-ed through the Nordic Council of Ministers’ program Nordplus Horizontal and the European Regional Development Fund.

2019 / Article 2:

Alhonsuo, M., & Colley, A.

Designing new hospitals – Who cares about the patients?

Figure 1. My research journey. (Author’s illustration)