Innovation and Design at End of Life: Tea with Ivor Williams

by Lizzy MilesThe day before the inauguralEndwell Conference in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to sit down for tea with Ivor Williams. Ivor ’s Endwell biography listed in the program is what caught my attention.Ivor is Senior Design Associate at theHelix Centre, based in St Mary ’s Hospital in London; founder of the research and consultancy groupBeing and Dying; and co-founder ofHumane Engineering, designing digital products that explore the use of technology for health and social good.Ivor ’s focus at theHelix Centre is on innovation at end of life. I really didn ' t know what that meant, but I wanted to learn more from Ivor. In hindsight, I wish I would have audio recorded our conversation because his way of expressing himself is so thoughtful and profound. I even found myself forgetting to take notes or finish my sentences on the notes that I did take.Fortunately I wrote down my takeaways from our conversation. These are not necessarily direct quotes, but themes and ideas that came through.Doctors aren ’t experts. As a society we have to move away from the idea that medicine provides certainty.and yet …In the U.K., a patient cannot demand treatment.Death is about power and control. I brought up the conditions in the U.S. where it seems to be that there are a wide variety of views and strong opinions related to end of life. There is the advocacy for euthanasia and then a contingent of people who insist you should have the right to pursue treatment, even...

Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - January 31, 2018 Category: Palliative Care Tags: design helix hospice innovation ivor williams lizzy miles social worker tea Source Type: blogs