An overview of projects that I put my heart, mind, and passion into…
Project 1
End-to-end redesign of the emergency room experience
Objective - Redesign the emergency room experience to increase patient satisfaction scores across regional hospitals
Responsibilities - Service design, research and strategy, workshop facilitation, service prototyping, pilot program implementation, validation research
Approach - Onsite ethnography was done over the course of six weeks at nine regional ERs with a mix of high and low patient satisfaction scores as well as at competitor ERs in order to understand current processes and patient needs. I co-developed observation guides to use among the 10 person team while onsite in order to see a cohesive view of the different ER spaces. After analysis and synthesis of the findings from ethnography along with market research, concepts were developed blind-tested with consumers before starting prototyping.
After 8 weeks of prototyping with frontline, IT, consumer experience, and leadership stakeholders through bodystorming and cocreation workshops, we developed a pilot playbook to be used for implementation that guided the pilot work at a high-volume ER.
Project 2
Discovering requirements for a new Transportation Management System
Objective
Determine current fleet management barriers, prevent incorrect trailer dispatches, and reduce manual effort for creating route assignments
Responsibilities
Service design, stakeholder engagement, research and strategy, workshop facilitation
Approach
Discovery sessions: I worked alongside a product manager to identify who to engage and tools to best to capture the data. In these sessions I prioritized identifying gaps through journey mapping by facilitating conversations with the SMEs and associates who were directly working on these processes.
Journey mapping: The initial journey map then led to a now/next/later format map to show where we would need to fill the gaps while a new dashboard or system was being developed.
Jobs-to-be-done: When we started this work, the intention was to outline requirements for internal or outsourced dashboard creation. However, while we were in discovery the business approved a vendor selection process for a new transportation management system that would potentially cover many of our gaps. I turned our focus to using a jobs-to-be-done framework so that we could understand not only what was happening in the current state, but what the desired outcomes were from the steps that our associates were taking in this process. This job mapping helped refine our requirements even further so that we had very clear list that we could give to the committee that would be approving the transportation management system.
Cost/Savings Analysis: The PM and I analyzed the numbers to understand what this new TMS would save the business for roles and systems that would be eliminated or transitioned. We did this by working closely with the transportation partners to estimate cost of each role per hour spent doing tasks directly related to our problem.
The estimated savings of about $2million per fiscal year is based on elimination of manual effort required, time savings, and elimination or reallocation of roles, tools, and systems that will be covered by the new TMS. This was key in the committee finalizing the TMS selection process, as we showed not only how many requirements were met, but the price difference between the vendors that would affect our savings.
Job mapping allowed us to identify current state and desired outcomes based on associate processes.
I worked with the business to outline necessary requirements for a TMS that would serve as a guide for discovery.
The current state journey outlined key gaps to shape our requirements for a more robust transportation management system
Project 3
Designing a supportive care program centered around the family
Objective - Develop a scalable supportive care program through understanding patient, family, and care team needs in end-of-life planning.
Responsibilities - Research planning & moderating, research analysis and synthesis, opportunity development, workshop design & facilitation, report presentation to stakeholders
Approach - This project was sponsored by hospital leadership and led by the hospital innovation lab to discover and address the needs of patients and their family caregivers toward end-of-life care.
During the discovery phase I developed guides and moderated discussions with internal hospital staff in high-acuity units to learn current state processes for end-of-life conversations. I also co-moderated interviews with family caregivers who had been the primary decision maker for a loved one during end-of-life. This initial research uncovered key pain points in the experience that led to a lack of empowerment for families in crucial decision-making moments.
I presented the insights along with opportunities and recommendations to the sponsoring team and staff and then designed and co-facilitated the virtual workshop with these stakeholders to co-create solutions.
Card sorting activities in-unit with nurses and physicians to understand current practices for end-of-life care
Virtual workshop with stakeholders to co-create solutions based on the opportunities.
Additional presentation with leadership to recommend next steps after cocreation workshop
Opportunity map developed from caregiver and staff insights
Structure and activities to guide the 3.5 hour virtual cocreation workshop
Project 4
Improving nurse retention through childcare benefits
Objective - Develop and validate childcare benefits concepts to improve nurse attraction and retention
Responsibilities - Research planning & moderating, concept design, research analysis and synthesis, development of recommendations, report presentation to stakeholders
Approach - In an effort to understand the feasibility of an employer-offered childcare benefit, I worked with the leadership team to define the scope for concepts that could be presented to research participants for feedback. The first step was creating and launching a survey at a high-performing hospital to understand the demand for a benefit like this as well as current childcare concerns and ideal solutions.
Based on the survey analysis I developed 6 concepts to present to research participants (mostly clinical roles, with a focus on nursing) for feedback. I moderated 6 mini-groups over a one-week period where participants were asked to rate and then ideate on each concept to make it work for them.
I presented the top three concepts along with modifications and package options discovered from the groups to the leadership team with the recommendation of further concept feasibility studies and a staff validation survey scaled to all regional hospitals to guide implementation. Response from leadership was to work towards scaling across all regional facilities and the corporate level.
Mini-groups with nurses to ideate on benefits concepts
Focus group analysis and synthesis
Project 5
Concept: A patient-facing caregiving platform to reduce readmissions
Objective - Discovering insights and solutions to implementing remote patient monitoring systems into different sectors of the healthcare industry.
Responsibilities - Research planning & moderating, concept development, feature prioritization based on insights
Approach - Through a SCADpro alliance we had a diverse group of 10 stakeholders from the healthcare industry and opportunity to facilitate hands-on collaboration with people who rarely have the opportunity to communicate this deeply about their consumer market's needs.
I was responsible for the build out of discussion guides and research strategy to guide my team’s work on this ten-week sprint toward a solution with clear features and market placement. Based on insights from interviews with key stakeholders in the space and end-users, we created a multiple-caregiver platform concept to reduce patient complications and readmission post-procedure.
Key patient insights to guide design
Patient journey map showing emotional touchpoints in the journey
The ARC project ecosystem