Why Evaluation Must Catch Up with Co-Design in Healthcare

Co-design is now a cornerstone of healthcare research, policy, and service transformation. Engaging patients, clinicians, and communities is widely seen as both ethically sound and practically valuable. Yet evaluation has not kept pace.

Recent evidence shows that while co-design is increasingly used across health systems, its processes and impacts are rarely evaluated in a rigorous or structured ways.[1] Too often, evaluation focuses on end results or participant satisfaction, overlooking how decisions are made, how power is shared, and whether engagement is truly meaningful.

This matters. Strong outcomes depend on strong processes. Without evaluating how co-design actually functions, organizations risk investing time and resources without clear insight into what is working, for whom, and why.

Emerging frameworks emphasize evaluation as a continuous practice, used to plan co-design, adapt it in real time, and learn from it over time. This shift allows organizations to strengthen implementation, improve accountability, and link engagement efforts to system-level impact and sustainability.

For healthcare and life sciences leaders, the message is clear: co-design should not be assumed to add value, it should be evaluated. When done well, evaluation turns co-design from a principle into a strategic advantage, enabling better decisions, stronger partnerships, and more resilient health systems.

The W&W Team

Sources:

1. Peters, S et al. Implementation Science, 2024.