Past scoundrels are future heroes
1508 has designed a new service called “Hero’s Journey” for people with the chronic disease COPD to the health clinic, Frederiksberg Sundhedscenter. The service, which aims to help these people to self care so that the disease does not worsen, consists of a comprehensive rehabilitation process and provides a framework for an interdisciplinary process that satisfy the special needs and demands of the COPD citizens. The concept is targeted at citizens in the labor market with mild to moderate COPD. The service process includes knowledge and tools to create a consistent life for people suffering of COPD. In short, to equip and motivate COPD-citizens to do self-care and achieve a better quality of life, thus managing to stay in the labor market.
The overall concept for the rehabilitation process is groundbreaking in its approach, since it addresses a citizens with COPD as heroes rather than scoundrels. The concept is based on a dramatic grip called “Hero’s Journey” which is an archetypical course of events within the fictitious world. “Heroes Journey” requires a positive framework for the process rather than a negative focus on the disease. The concept thus initiates a shift in paradigms in the healthcare system, specifically among workers at the health center where the COPD citizen will be seen as “a whole person” or as a “hero” on a journey towards a difficult goal with helpers and tools to his or her disposition.
The dramatic grip helps the professionals to understand the citizen’s mental state during the process and help the citizen fight his enemies by providing the right tools at the right time. It also helps the Sundhedscenter to set up the right team to each individual citizen and to include relatives and friends as part of the rehabilitation process. The concept grounded on the dramatic grip and the educational tools address a problem characteristic of many COPD citizens, namely the feeling of standing alone, being stigmatised and not regarded as a whole person. The citizens can access the service in many ways and it can easily be adjusted to their work situation etc.
There are about 780 citizens with COPD in Frederiksberg Municipality. The cost of taking care of these citizens is estimated to 82,959,240 kroner a year. At a regional level, this group costs more than 110,000,000 kroner a year. The estimated economical savings of “Hero’s Journey” amounts to somewhere between 300-380 mio kr. a year at the regional level.
“Hero’s Journey” has just been nominated to INDEX Award 2009 – the largest design award in the world.