When complexity stops innovation at the starting line
This complexity doesn’t only slow down implementation, it can make it difficult to even start. In multi-stakeholder settings, the same idea is often understood differently by each participant. A concept described in words or slides lives as a different mental image in the head of every policymaker, clinician, or IT partner. The result is friction. Alignment is delayed, discussions repeat, and projects stall before they ever reach the point of testing in practice.
Lessons from car design: The power of a shared view
A similar challenge was once faced in car design. Before the 1930s, designers and engineers relied on sketches, each interpreting lines differently. At General Motors, Harley Earl introduced clay modeling to overcome this barrier (Autocar). Suddenly, abstract ideas became tangible. Teams could stand around the same clay model, discuss it, and iterate rapidly. The shared reference point accelerated decision-making and reduced costly misunderstandings.
A modern “future health design clay” – Health CollabAI
Health CollabAI serves a similar purpose in healthcare service design. It allows stakeholders to collaboratively prototype and simulate new health services in a safe, controlled, and evidence-driven environment. Like clay models, it turns abstract visions into something visible and shared. Stakeholders with different competences and perspectives no longer rely on parallel mental models, but can align around a common representation. This makes it possible to address complexity without paralysis, reducing coordination overhead and accelerating movement from idea to tangible pilot.
In the scientific spirit of testing before scaling, we’ve tested CollabAI in controlled real-world software development. The results demonstrate significantly reduced time spent on coordination, increased clarity between stakeholders, and faster progress towards deployable solutions. By combining design thinking, AI-assisted modelling, and domain expertise, CollabAI bridges the gap between policy, clinical practice, and technology.
Healthcare transformation requires shared understanding, tangible prototypes, and methods that respect complexity while cutting through inertia. CollabAI provides exactly that.