Co-designing Mechanical Circulatory Support Devices: An Affinity Mapping Approach to Bring Together Clinical, Patient, and Technical Perspectives

Background: Mechanical Circulatory Support (MCS) device development has often been driven by engineering priorities, overlooking patient experiences and clinical insights. Integrating diverse stakeholder perspectives is essential to ensure device designs align with clinical practice, usability, and safety. Objective: As part of a broader MCS design program, we applied the co-design method of affinity mapping to bring together patients, caregivers, clinicians, engineers, and coordinators for collaborative reflection and decision-making. The process supported shared interpretation of user experiences and clinical priorities, to inform design considerations for device usability and patient management. Conclusions: Embedding affinity mapping within early-stage device development enabled a holistic understanding of user needs and supported productive dialogue between clinical and engineering teams. Clinical Implications: Co-design methods, such as affinity mapping, can be used to leverage multistakeholder perspectives to strengthen decision-making surrounding the design of future MCS devices and better support the needs of patients and caregivers.