Healthcare and patient journeys

Never has the need to take a complexity-informed approach to healthcare been more apparent; one that puts lived experience and context at the centre of a logic of care. As the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted with greater urgency than we have felt in a generation, healthcare sits at the intersection of hundreds of questions: the natural science of research and investigation, the needs of people in pain, the pressures on and from their families, the structures of economic systems, and the needs and capacities of people trying to deliver it all come together to create a knot that cannot be unravelled. Like any complex, entangled, human problem, health must be approached as a whole.

Our SenseMaker® tool and surrounding methods have been used in the context of healthcare across the world for over a decade, across a wide variety of subjects which are both patient-facing as well as around structural and workforce issues. These approaches aim to democratise the research and engagement process by placing the respondent at the intersections of statistics and storytelling, asking them to be the owner of their own narrative. Located within an ecosystem of participatory methods, whether you’re looking to understand the experiences of healthcare professionals and leaders, patients and their relatives, or get a pulse check on employee wellbeing, our programme provides a platform for real-time distributed network response to key issues, as well as in defining collective insight to taking action.

As a membership-focused organisation, The Cynefin® Centre aims to provide practical and methodological scaffolding for practitioners in healthcare looking to make use of sense-making in their organisations and beyond. By joining our healthcare programme, you will be connecting to a wide and diverse community of practice, a movement of practitioners and organisations looking to make meaningful change for social good.

Due to the varied work we have built in the area of health, we can offer levels of service varying from tailor made bespoke projects, to tried and tested pulse survey options and signifier libraries around issues such as staff wellbeing and leadership journaling amongst others.

You can read more details on the practicalities of joining one of our programmes, in the brochure here.

Projects / reports on SenseMaker in health and care

An Oral History of Nursing during the pandemic, Royal College of Nursing, Northern Ireland - this project has since been launched UK wide

10,000 More Voices: Improving patient experience in Northern Ireland, Public Health Agency, Northern Ireland, UK

10 000 More Voices: Experience of Paediatric Autism and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Project, Public Health Agency, Northern Ireland, UK

Exploring drivers of child and early forced marriage in Zimbabwe and Philippines, Women's Refugee Commission

Understanding of what good clinical and care multi-professional leadership would look like in an Integrated Care Systems (ICS) context, Skills for Health, UK

Community voices, Palm Health Foundation, Florida, USA

Using SenseMaker to Understand Girls' Lives: Lessons Learnt from Girl Hub, Girl Hub, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Nigeria

Exploring theatre safety using SenseMaker®, NHS Ashford and St Peters Trust, UK

Women's experiences of the BRCA service, Ashford and St Peters Trust

Experiences of youth and adolescents' sexual and reproductive health in Rwanda and Northern Nigeria, Save the Children