Digital health innovation for older adults through design thinking

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgments

We thank the many people at AARP who have made this a rich learning experience for all involved, especially Alison Bryant, PhD, Patty David, MA, and Michael Phillips. We thank our colleagues at Tufts University School of Medicine who allow us the flexibility to pursue, incorporate, and refine the design thinking approach and the partnership with AARP. Most importantly, we thank the eight semesters of students who brought considerable thought and creativity to their design thinking projects. The students we especially acknowledge are Marissa Gallegos and Jonathan Castle for their development of the case study included here.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Lisa Gualtieri

Lisa Gualtieri, PhD, ScM, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA. She received her PhD in computer science from Harvard University. Dr. Gualtieri designed and refined the Digital Health course discussed here, and invited two former Digital Health students to write this paper with her.

Eden Shaveet

Eden Shaveet is a graduate student of Health Informatics & Analytics at Tufts University School of Medicine who supports research under Dr. Gualtieri.

Deborah Kim

Deborah Kim is a graduate student of Health Informatics & Analytics at Tufts University School of Medicine who also supports research under Dr. Gualtieri.