This book offers an overview of service design practices for healthcare and hospital management. It explores how these practices can help to generate innovations in healthcare and contribute to the improvement of patient-centered care. Respected experts, including scholars from various disciplines and practitioners from healthcare institutions, share essential insights into established research areas, fields of work and work structures, and discuss successful approaches, methods and tools. By illustrating innovative services, products, processes, systems, and technologies, as well as their application in practice, the authors highlight the role of participating stakeholders in service design projects and the added value that comes from sharing, communicating, networking and collaborating. 

Mario A. Pfannstiel is a researcher and lecturer in the field of healthcare service management at the University of Applied Sciences in Neu-Ulm, Germany. He holds a PhD from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics of the University of Potsdam, a diploma in Social Management with a focus on Finance Management from the University of Applied Sciences in Nordhausen, an MSc degree in Patient Management from Dresden International University and an MA in Healthcare and Social Facilities Management from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern and the University of Witten/Herdecke. He worked as an executive assistant to the medical director at the Heart Centre Leipzig in Germany. At the University of Bayreuth, he worked as Research Assistant at the Department of Strategic Management and Organization. He received his doctorate from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics and the Chair of Management, Professional Services and Sport Economics at the University of Potsdam. His research includes numerous articles, journals and books on management in the healthcare and hospital industry. Prof. Pfannstiel holds lectures in Germany and abroad at regular intervals. His current research interests focus on Service Management, Digitalisation of Services, Service Business Model Innovation, Service Design, Service Thinking, Innovative Services and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Service Delivery.

Nataliia Brehmer is a research associate at the Chair of Management, Professional Services and Sports Economics. She is teaching healthcare management and economics at the University of Potsdam and is a supervisor for a number of bachelor and master theses at the field of strategic management, consulting, sports- and healthcare management on the Faculties of Human Sciences and Economics and Social Studies at the University of Potsdam. Natalia Brehmer was engaged in the project DIGILOG and assisted the research efforts towards creating the innovative business models in health and elderly care. Practically, she is supervising the internships of sports management students and provides career consulting for young professionals. After finishing her master studies in the field of International Business and Negotiations she is working on her PhD Thesis with the topic Non-Market-Strategies that provide business with non-economic means in the social and political arenas to tackle the hypercompetition and sustain the competitive advantage. Mrs. Brehmer is multilingual and is fluent in Polish, Ukrainian, English, German and Russian languages.

Christoph Rasche is the Chair of Professional & Corporate Services at the University of Potsdam, Germany. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Innsbruck, Alcalá de Henares and Osnabrück. Rasche teaches strategic and general management in national and international MBA programs with a special focus on the healthcare and hospital industry. Formerly he consulted for Droege International AG and was a co-founder of Stratvanguard and the General Management Institute Potsdam. His main research areas are strategic and general management in the healthcare & hospital sector, which is currently experiencing an era of professional value creation based on a strong management and leadership focus. Practically, he consults for major healthcare players and is actively involved in executive trainings for clients, ranging from corporate universities to MBA and PhD programs for healthcare professionals.