Highlands & Islands Campus The Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre

The Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) is a collaboration between the University of Strathclyde and The Glasgow School of Art (GSA). As the design team, our role is to ensure people remain at the centre of the innovation process, with lived experience driving change rather than technology alone.

Based at the GSA’s School of lnnovation and Technology in Glasgow and Moray, our multi-disciplinary team of Design Researchers and Creative Technologists works across urban and rural contexts—locally, nationally, and internationally. We support collaboration across academia, public and third sectors, and businesses to improve health and care.

We bring insights from participatory design to life through visualisation, collaborative making, prototyping, and simulation. This approach helps shape future health and care products, services, and systems that are grounded in real-world needs and experiences.

To date, we’ve worked with more than 3,000 citizens, 1,000 health and care professionals, and 75 project partners. The DHI connects designers, researchers, healthcare providers, SMEs, charities, decision makers, and citizens to co-create innovative solutions for Scotland’s health and care system.

Why Design?

As a core partner in DHI, the GSA contributes world-class expertise in design-led innovation and research in health and care. Our participatory, person-centred approach focuses on understanding lived experiences and exploring preferable futures. Participants are supported to share stories, challenges, and ideas using tailored methods and tools, helping translate insight into meaningful, sustainable innovation.

The DHI strategy for 2024-2033 identifies 7 Priority Action Areas that provide a linking thread through our projects. These areas are:

Contributing to health and social care transformation
Developing digital and data infrastructures as national assets
Enhancing Scotland’s connected ecosystem through cross sectoral innovation clusters
Developing a future skills pipeline which delivers workforce capabilities fit for Scotland’s future
Extending commercial engagement to support economic growth
Contributing to Net Zero targets
Enhancing Scotland’s international reputation in research and innovation

With a foundation in design-driven innovation, these priority areas support DHI’s mission to turn great ideas into meaningful digital health and care solutions.

Project Example

AI Supported Image Analysis in Large Bowel Camera Capsule Endoscopy (AICE)

An example of DHI’s work is the AI-Supported Image Analysis in Large Bowel Camera Capsule Endoscopy (AICE) project, funded by Horizon Europe and UK Research and Innovation, aims to develop an AI-assisted patient pathway for Colon Capsule Endoscopy (CCE). The AICE pathway will enhance comfort and efficiency, improve patient compliance, and identify those best suited for CCE, leading to earlier detection of bowel pathology and better outcomes.

The University of Strathclyde and The Glasgow School of Art are developing a user-facing digital app to enhance the patient experience during the AICE pathway. Patients may prefer CCE as it can be performed outside hospitals and reduces travel.

Interviews with AICE Team researchers and CCE implementers informed participatory design preparation and an initial prototype created using a “design through doing” approach. The prototype will serve as a prompt for participatory design workshops involving both patients with prior CCE experience and healthcare professionals delivering CCE. Future workshops and focus groups will generate and test design ideas with a wider range of people.

The user-facing app will support and empower patients to prepare and manage their procedures, including facilitating healthcare professional care. The research aims to inform remote procedure delivery, establish principles for patient professionalisation, and create a digital app adaptable to various contexts and patient needs. It will also explore the role of AI algorithms and patients’ relationship with them.