Service Design to Improve Women’s Maternal Healthcare Services in Nepal

 

By Julie N. Rosvoll, Ida Christine Opsahl and Nora Pincus Gjertsen

Spring 2019

 

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The project concerned the maternal healthcare of women in rural Nepal. Maternal healthcare is referred to here as the care of women during stages of: contraception, antenatal care, childbirth care and postnatal care. The attention was be directed towards problems faced by women in need of maternal healthcare services. Two field trips to Nepal were conducted, one for gathering insights and one during the concept development. In Nepal, the Master students collaborated closely with an NGO, Green Tara Nepal (GTN) https://greentara.org.np/. Collaboration with GTN gave the students the possibility to work with Nepalese experts in the field, who have access to rural health practices and who have gained local peoples trust.  Based on this collaboration, desk top research and field visits, design opportunities were defined, and a solution was developed. Service design was used as a methodical approach to create good and holistic experience(s) for end users.

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Result

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The final design delivery was a flip chart and flyers for rural health workers and families in Dhading district in Nepal. http://www.shantinepal.org.np/shantinepal/index.php/aboutus/about-dhading

The Master thesis achieved to put design research and service design methodology into practice and explored how to design for the developing world. Moreover, it comprises a full design project, from inspiration to implementation, meeting the needs of the users based on their own cultural and geographic circumstances.

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See the full report:

https://ntnuopen.ntnu.no/ntnu-xmlui/handle/11250/2620979?show=full