UX Research — Public Health

How did you feel after watching that?

Confronting, isn’t it?! This is the reality for our front line healthcare workforce. In this case study, you will read a summary of the research we conducted at a Victorian public health service.

Context

Occupational Violence and Aggression (OVA) events in the healthcare sector are increasing and have been defined as a ‘serious issue’ by WorkSafe Victoria.

Our frontline workforce is regularly facing violence and aggression from patients, family, visitors and residents.

It was clear to me that we needed to immerse ourselves in the user's world.

The client’s brief

The client believed that an upgrade to the existing OVA training program would improve the de-escalation process, preventing the OVA events from escalating to a significant incident. Therefore, they believed an improved learning experience was the correct solution.

However, the Manager hired us to conduct the discovery as he wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the situation the staff in high-risk areas were facing.

My role

I was the Learning Experience Designer on this project, working with a colleague to conduct the focus groups and lead the remaining elements of the analysis and discovery. I was responsible for synthesising our findings, creating the report, and presenting our findings to the client.

The process

So, what did we end up doing?

Lucky for us, we got to conduct all (except two) of our intended research methods. Including:

Analysed and audited:

• Five internal policies/procedures
• Existing campaign material
• Regional guidelines
• Union guidelines

Conducted:

• Six focus groups
• One-on-one interview
• Survey

From the focus groups, we found:

• a lack of understanding of the policies/procedures including; roles and responsibilities and a lack of trust in the escalation process
• inconsistencies with who received the training and when
• the need for cross-disciplinary training i.e. a combination of nursing, medical, allied health, support
• services and security attending the same sessions
• a more practical approach to training — practicing practical techniques as well as being able to implement/replicate in the ‘real world’
• staff from medical, allied health, and nursing expressed their lack of knowledge when dealing with a patient’s family.

From the regional guidelines we found that:

• training should be adapted according to roles, specialty, or experience level
• training should be cross-disciplinary
• the message that restraints are a last resort has not been conveyed well.

And the existing campaign materials hadn’t been adopted consistently due to the disjointed release and communication.

The challenges

Our brief was targetting training, however, during the analysis we uncovered further insights such as:

• inconsistencies with documentation
• difficulties using the reporting system
• unclear escalation processes
• staff wellbeing and resilience
• communication techniques with family members.

Some fab opportunities surfaced as a result of this research, two of particular interest being:

1. A communication strategy and campaign

‘One message, seen by all’

2. A secondary UX analysis of the reporting system

‘If events aren’t being reported, how do we know the true extent?’

To summarise

Challenge your client's assumptions. Don’t fix a ‘problem’ that might not exist and finally spend a lot of time with your users no matter how confronting the topic might be.

Thank you so much for reading and watch this space!