Models and Parallels

Welcome back! We are a-CUTE Wounds Warriors, a team from the Master’s of Human-Computer Interaction program at Carnegie Mellon University, partnering with University Hospitals of Cleveland to improve outcomes for at-home patient-administered wound care.

Mapping the Patient’s Journey

As we entered Sprint 3 we wanted to synthesize the research we had done up until this point and visualize that information to ensure we were all on the same page. One of the most impactful activities we did during this sprint was to generate a patient journey map.

Doing this gave us insight into the stages of the patient journey, the touch points, the actions and emotions involved, and the opportunities that might be waiting for us in each stage.

We then shared this map with our client and received feedback that allowed us to more accurately represent the patient journey. Having an accurate understanding of the sequence of events and associated emotions will only help us to discover the areas in which we can make the biggest impact.

Nurse Interviews

While we dedicated our Sprint 2 Cleveland site visit to speaking with patients and watching a mock session with the nurse and doctor, we had yet to speak in-depth with any of the nurses that make everything possible.

We were fortunate enough to speak remotely with nurses who either currently worked with University Hospitals of Cleveland, or who had worked with the clinic in the past.

We wanted to understand a few things:

• Why healthcare providers communicate with patients the way they do, and any barriers they might experience in the process
• Healthcare providers’ expectations on patients’ at-home wound care behaviors
• How healthcare providers view the efficacy of the instructions they give their patients
• The pain points healthcare providers have about helping patients practice wound care procedures at home

One thing that really stuck with us was the empathy exuded by the nurses. Their care for their patients is something to be admired, and something we must carry through to our final solution.

Analogous Worlds

As we continued to diverge in our process we were encouraged by our mentor, Julie, to explore analogous worlds. If you’ve never heard of analogous worlds, it’s an exercise that can be used to break down a concept into individual elements and then use those elements to draw on parallel themes. For our problem of at-home wound care, this meant breaking down our problem into multiple elements, as seen in the image below.

Once we had those elements, we each brainstormed industries that excel in those areas. With those elements in mind, we opened up the floor to our mentors to help us narrow down our options.

Together we elevated the themes we had identified and used those to choose four analogous worlds we wanted to explore in depth.

The worlds we settled on were:

• Diabetes educators
• Physical therapy
• Mental health hotlines
• Children’s dentists

We felt that these areas of practice are model examples of industries that excel in generating self-motivation, involve teams, take place remotely, require trust, involve various learning styles, and are high stakes.

With our worlds selected, we are excited to jump in and explore how they excel at what they do and how we might be able to carry these lessons over to our world of patient-administered wound care.

The Path Forward

As we continue into Sprint 4 we are excited to get out into our community and conduct intercept interviews at local community centers to deepen our understanding of the patient experience. We also look forward to posting surveys to online support groups and discussion boards in hopes of reaching a wide range of patients. Finally, as we have in each sprint, we will continue to build up our base of desk research to round out or knowledge of the problem space. Stay tuned for the next update from the a-CUTE Wounds Warriors! #AWW #HealthCareInnovation #SprintRecap

*This project is not intended to contribute to generalizable knowledge and is not human subjects research.