Digital Storytelling to Share Service Experiences and Find Insights into Health Care

This chapter explores the value of including digital storytelling in service design for improving the quality, safety and convenience of health-related services. The aim of the chapter is to explore how stories of healthcare experiences can be shared through digital tools to garner critical insights into creating innovative healthcare services and improving the quality of treatment. The data were collected through the personal stories of the authors regarding health treatment and care processes; these were shared as digital diaries within a closed network through the digital tool and communication platform WhatsApp. The stories were autobiographical reflections on service journeys that mirrored, for example, the rehabilitation process of a child from a mother’s point of view and the self-narrated treatment of spinal injury and rehabilitation from an adult’s point of view. WhatsApp enabled multiple methods of communication: written text, voice recordings, pictures, videos, emojis and graphics interchange format (GIF). The tool enabled documentation of and reflections on service moments or feelings that were encountered in health-related environments. The platform also provided freedom of expression in a safe and trusted environment, as the diary authors were able to control access to the content. The digital data were transferred from WhatsApp into an online whiteboard tool and were explored by the authors in-depth through collective autoethnography. The outcomes of this study offer insights into how digital tools can be used to better scope and collect the experiences of healthcare users and explore the role of storytelling in developing meaningful and innovative healthcare services and treatment quality.