A Design Thinking Approach to Transform the Experience of Transition among Senior Adults at the time of Nursing Home Admission

Person-centred care has been a well-established concept to transition senior adults (SA) into nursing homes (NH). However, in practice, the need to provide basic care amidst the persistent manpower crunch in the setting has consistently superseded the direction of person-centred care in NH transition. Even with the introduction of new service models, studies continued to advocate that the navigation of services should remain simple and streamlined. In relation to the ‘wicked problem’ that persist, design thinking (DT) can be adopted to address the unacceptably huge gap between the services that NH operators aim to deliver and the actual service that is delivered. The objective of the study is to integrate principles of DT and design tools with occupational therapy practice to develop an empathetic care model that better transition SA into NH in Singapore.