THE COLLABORATIVE

Joel Worthington | Founder + Principal

Joel founded JW Collaborative to more directly and nimbly serve and impact clients who believe human-centered design should be paired with business, clinical, organizational, or systems thinking acumen to create a more holistic future. Joel leads design strategy as well as client and collaborator relationships.

Joel uses human-centered design in conjunction with his wealth of health system strategy and large, service organization experience to explore and solve complex problems in new ways - from establishing new system visions to roadmapping implementation nuances for new experiences. He is an expert at considering multiple perspectives and integrating cross-disciplinary players and efforts. With an eye on the patient, family, provider, and staff experience at the center, he understands that technology enables the ideal experience but it’s not the experience itself, operations demands diligent execution, new care delivery models will continue to evolve, and the environment must be shaped to allow for today’s experiences while preparing for the future. He leads conversations with project stakeholders and end-users alike – engaging those in executive leadership to pediatric patients. He ensures the subsequent development path of new offerings for clients through iterative rounds of exploration and refinement.

Joel has a unique ability to make the complex feel approachable and the impossible achievable. Relentlessly curious and passionate about helping end-users live better lives through design, he passionately enjoys experimenting with hands-on approaches and creative methods. In other words, he is the collaborator you want on your team and connector of all the disparate dots, never settling for the status quo.

Experience:

Prior to founding JW Collaborative, he was the Director of Business at HDR, a global design firm specializing in architecture and engineering. In that role, he was a leader in HDR’s consulting practice, where he helped create client-centered value in strategic pursuits; facilitated organizational change, knowledge, and skill enrichment through design thinking training, co-creation workshops, and tool development; and evangelized human-centered systems design through internal relationships and external thought leadership. Before that, he was a member of HDR’s Strategic Innovation team (where he also served as an Innovation Advisory Board member for Advocate Children’s Hospital), the Director of Business Development at Adventist Midwest Health’s Hinsdale and LaGrange Hospitals, a management consultant at Navigant and Sg2, and an Administrative Fellow at Lake Forest Hospital. He has a Master of Design Methods from IIT’s Institute of Design, a Master of Health Services Administration from the University of Kansas Medical Center, and a B.S. in Strategic Communications from the University of Kansas. He has 15 years of professional experience. He is currently Adjunct Faculty in Rush University Health System’s Management graduate school program where he teaches “Introduction to Human-centered Design” to future health system leaders.

Most humanizing project moment:

“I once conducted an ethnographic interview in the living room of a mom who was taking care of her baby with cerebral palsy. Our goal in these kinds of interviews is to get to know the interviewee a bit and warm them up before getting into anything too emotional or challenging, but she was in tears within the first 30 seconds of the interview because she was so overwhelmed by her circumstances. While tough to witness, it was a great reminder of why I do what I do – seek to understand users’ needs in order to design solutions that make their lives better.”

Hobbies: 

“Inventing a new way to make my toddler son laugh every day, traveling and exploring with my family, photography, Instagramming (@thephototypinglife), podcasts on-the-go, listening to great music, new cultural experiences, running, yoga, witty banter, Scrabble, dad jokes, beard care, etc.”