Military Health Continuum

Philips: Strategic Design Summer Internship

Goal

Crafting Data-Driven Stories for Inclusive Impact for the DOD and VA

Role

Research, Ideation, Prototyping, Wire framing, Storytelling

Tools

Figma and Adobe Illustrator

Outcome

Storytelling tool embedded in organization and used as a sales tool, as demonstrated in the 2024 DHITS Conference

What is Philips’ Military Health Continuum?

The Philips Military Health Continuum is a comprehensive framework that tracks a soldier through the stages of pre-deployment, deployment, and post-deployment, showcasing Philips' offerings at each stage. It is primarily used by the Senior Director of the Government Health System Development team at Philips North America as a storytelling tool to engage Philips' major clients, the Department of Defense (DOD) and Veterans Affairs (VA), both internally and externally.

Assigned Challenge Brief

Transforming the current version of the Military Health Continuum (MHC) from a static customer journey into a interactive and dynamic storytelling tool for enhanced engagement with both internal and external stakeholders.

Graph to left: 2D customer journey assigned to transform into an engaging storytelling tool

Military Health Continuum Interactive Sales Tool

Design Process

Stakeholders: Co-creators

Department of Defense

Philips: Design Team

Stakeholder #2: Philips Design Agenda Principles 2024

Care

Simplify

Philips: Other Business Units

Unite

Elevate

Veterans Affairs

Philips: Design Review Team

Philips: Government Team

Define

Redefining the Challenge Brief

Using design thinking to complete thorough need finding in order to redefine the challenge brief by conducting empathy interviews with relevant stakeholders to unite the what, why, how, who and the story around this.

Need #1

HMW Statement:

How might we develop an optimal strategy that ensures comprehensive understanding while promoting inclusivity?

To ensure a comprehensive understanding of both the VA and DOD, promoting inclusivity in our approach.

Need #2

Demonstrate the applicability, relevance and effectiveness of Philips solutions across the MHC.

HMW Statement:

How might we effectively synthesize and capture Philips' wide range of solutions to support the Military Health Continuum journey?

Ideation and Prototype

Process: Concepting

After identifying key personas, the concept of story cards was created to clearly illustrate where Philips’ offerings can intervene at crucial stages of a soldier’s journey. These story cards act as visual touch points, mapping specific challenges and demonstrating how Philips' solutions are strategically positioned to address the most relevant needs at each stage of the journey.

Building on this, the story cards can be expanded to:

  • Highlight specific pain points personas face

  • Showcase personalized interventions at the identified critical pain points

  • Increase engagement by making the journey more relatable, deepening the emotional connection with personas, and reinforcing the narrative

Prototype II: Solution-Specific

Solution #1: Personas

To demonstrate our deep understanding of the DOD and VA as clients, I proposed introducing relevant personas throughout the journey to:

  • Foster empathy

  • Humanize the journey

  • Build credibility

  • Influence through compelling storytelling

By incorporating affiliated personas, we deepen the narrative, extending beyond the individual soldier to highlight the interconnected ecosystem of those supporting them. This strengthens our understanding of the broader challenges these personas also encounter, demonstrating how Philips’ offerings can serve as further key points of intervention.

To effectively capture and communicate Philips' broad array of solutions across the customer journey, I proposed focusing on the top three market solutions for each relevant stage. This approach ensures the message remains clear and impactful, preventing information overload while increasing the likelihood of retention. By carefully curating these solutions, we can highlight the most relevant interventions at each stage, making the journey more digestible and engaging for the audience, and ensuring that Philips' value is communicated in a way that resonates with the client.

After presenting the top three products, the information hierarchy provides users with an option to click and explore the full range of available solutions, offering an intuitive and seamless way to dive deeper into the full breadth of options.

Solution #2: Story Cards

Solution #3: Solution Cards

  • Managing teams across different business units often led to tensions and conflicting narratives. I had to navigate 28 individual, diverse stakeholder interests and resolve conflicts, balancing priorities while fostering collaboration and alignment. This experience sharpened my ability to mediate and lead through complexity.

  • I learned that working in faster interactions, rather than perfecting a single one, helps align stakeholders and quickly validates the real needs through the design thinking process.

  • Personal awareness and openness to vulnerability fosters a generative mindset, not only leading to greater project clarity but more efficient stakeholder alignment.

  • Being mindful of the process is key!

Reflections

Prototype III: High-Fidelity in Figma

Prototype I: Low Fidelity

Collaborated with the internal design review team to iterate, build, and refine the information hierarchy and architecture of the storytelling tool with the following main questions in mind:

  1. How might we bring the human side more to the front of the story?

  2. How might we design the tool in a flexible yet modular way to allow for scenarios to be developed?

Next

Watershed