NHS Sustainable Operating Theatres Project Log
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Content Meet the Team
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Our Process
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Our Brief and Clients
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Interrogating Our Brief
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Creative Process Maps
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Phase One: Set-up
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Phase Two: Problem/Solution Evolution
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Phase Three: Strategy Development
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Phase Four: Communications
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Living Our Values
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Meet the Team Our team was made up of four Multidisciplinary Innovation postgraduate students with the following backgrounds: Mairi Bell - Consulting and Business Development Jack Fitt - Business Management Kai Hsu - Industrial Design and Computer Science Hannah Pickard - Children’s Physiotherapist With special thanks to: Justine Carrion-Weiss - MDI Innovator in Residence and our team's dedicated academic support across the project Joe Browning- DFI intern offering our team additional design skills and resource at key points 4
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Mairi Bell Business Development Consultant My background is in business development, designing and delivering consultancy projects for government and public sector. Following a career break to raise my daughters (not much of a break!) I started my own freelancing business and enrolled in MDI to kick-start my return. 6
Jack Fitt Business Management Graduate Keen interest in the innovation and consistent evolution of a product. Personally I am a health motivated individual who enjoys productivity and continuous improvement wherever that may be physical or mental. Im a keen traveler having lived in multiple countries and visited even more for extended periods of time. My goal is to incorporate my love of health and travel into my place work and for both to hopefully compliment each other.
Kai Hsu Innovation Engineer With a background both in Industrial Design and Multidisciplinary Innovation, I am passionate about helping my clients deliver value from emerging technologies. I'm an early adopter, passion for trying new designs driven by technologies. Inspired by the aesthetics of Algorithm-Driven Design, I am trying to find a balance between minimalism and aesthetics that exist in mechanical engineering.
Hannah Pickard Children’s Physiotherapist Over 15 years clinical experience in Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Qatar and the NHS in the UK. Specialist in neurodisability. A teamworker and resource investigator through and through. Destined to be an internal changemaker in my next life. Responsible for stakeholder management in this project.
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Our Process The project log is meant to be a codified document of what was done, how and why. As a team, we decided to structure our project activities using Nick Spencer’s framework that he introduced to us at the start of the course.
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Phase One
Phase Two
Phase Three
Phase Four
Set-up
Problem/Solution Evolution
Strategy Development
Communications
We start each section with the introduction to the phase. We also outline the high-level plan for each phase. There are also 4 main ‘lines of action’ in Nick's model and we added the fifth, strong teamwork.
Strong Teamwork
Find Out
Form Positions
Explore Solutions
Material Engagement
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We chose key activities under each of these lines and gave a brief description as well as a representative photo. Each line’s section concludes with overall reflections. The framework also includes 4 ‘points of convergence’: • • • •
Situation Opportunities Value Scaffolding Solutions Transformation Plans Strategy Pitch
These are often presented in the milestones/outcomes for each phase. The end of each section we explored how we applied ‘critical success factors’ we’d set for ourselves throughout the phase. At the very end of the log, we considered how we remained true to our team values over the course of the project.
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Situation Opportunities
Points of Convergence
Stage of Project Iines of Action Find Out
Form Positions
Setup
Value Scaffolding Solutions
Problem and Solution Evolution
Transformation Plans Strategy
Strategy Development
While the framework and our structure lends itself to a sequential, linear presentation, we appreciate that this is actually quite far from the true process.
Pitch
Communications
Unpack
At the end of each phase, we analysed the interdependent nature of the activities and how they related to each other.
Explore Solutions
Material Engagement
This is visualised in creative process maps (see page 18) at the beginning of each section.
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Our Brief and Clients
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We were presented with an interesting yet challenging brief around Sustainable Operating Theatres, which included two main stakeholders-
• ●The Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, represented in this project by Dr Cathy Lawson; and • ●Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundations Trust, primarily the Freeman Hospital and Dr Ian Baxter, Consultant Anaesthetist
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Interrogating our Brief we found Critical Success Factors for our project
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Achieve Credibility
Behave With Empathy
To identify best and emerging-practice in sustainable surgery worldwide in order to be able to understand the scale of the challenge and to be able to articulate and conceptualise new opportunities.
Work with your client to help them engage co-creatively with their stakeholders (all of whom are time-poor and some of whom may have entrenched views) in order to draw out their insights, knowledge and ideas.
Target Our Practice
Materialise Value
Experimenting with and designing appropriate engagement interventions using co-creative and participatory design research methods and deploying these.
Ultimately, you will work with the ideas and insights derived from your interventions in order to produce a coherent set of opportunities along with implementation strategies.
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Creative Process Maps Explore Solutions: Design Primary Research for Preferred Investgation
Our Creative Process Maps are our attempt to recognise the connections between activities across our five lines of action, and how they related with each other to deliver phase outcomes. Inspired by Sanders and Stappers’ ‘fuzzy front end’ diagram of a design process, we asked ourselves, what if we tried to unpick the tangle and make sense of it? Some of these relationships were planned and expected. Some were more surprising and were only uncovered as we conducted a retrospective review of each phase.
Project Brief
Assigned Team
Interrogate Brief Page 28
Material Engagement: Ethical Approval Application
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Set up Trello Page 22
Critical Success Facto Page 29 Team Create High Level Plan
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Explore Solution : Best Practice Solution
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ondary Research Tasks Find Out: Secondary Page 29 Research Review30 Investigations Grid Point Page37 34 29 31 32
ors
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'briefs' Collected In Templates From Cathy, Ian And Lisa
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Team: Kai’s Birthday Lunch
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20 Patient Journey Infographic Patient Material Journey Explore Solutions: Page 109 Map Engagement: Outline a methodology to pursue Briefs
Toolkit of possible methods for Client meeting
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Form 'Briefs' Positions: Analyse Identified In of outputs Levels from MDI Or Intervention At Friday's Workshop meeting
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Team: Brief Joe
Disruptus Game Standard
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Material Engagement: Summary of our 4 Briefs
Form Positions: Framing and selection criteria
Phase 2 Log Map
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Find out: Surgery/ limate/ crisis future
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High Level Plan For 3 Projects, Final 6 Weeks
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Empathy Mapping Page 35 34
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Team: Weekly Plan Do Review
Expert Input Page 35
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Material Engageme Ethics Of Prepare cl Ethnogra briefing pa Research for 1st rev perative Observat
Disruptus S Project C Transforma 17 Pa Transformatio tional Map 16 Page 10
18-24 Month Planning Meeting With Client
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Team Canva Page 40
Team: Weekly Plan Do
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Review 39
Contact Lloyd again to gauge interest in collaborating with Cathy to integrate sustainability into new ODP curriculum
Link Ca Lloyd vi sustaina curricul
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Phase One
Set-up
Set-up Phase We agreed we would structure our project activity around the design thinking framework that Nick Spencer introduced to MDI during Semester 1. This breaks down into four key phases: Setup, Problem/Solution, Develop Strategy and Communications. The Set-up Phase lasted from 2nd May to 22nd – starting with the formation of our team and ending with our first client meeting, a two hour workshop on 22nd May.
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Our priority was to establish ourselves as a team, developing collaborative relationships and agreeing working practices that would support us across our 13 week project. We invested a great deal of time in understanding the challenge and gaining background knowledge about all relevant aspects of the operating theatre environment. We set three goals for this phase that would enable us to move seamlessly from Set-up to Problem/Solution phase• Agree with client which opportunities we will take forward • Identify stakeholders for each opportunity and agree access protocols • Agree methods for co-creation and engagement during problem/ solution phase
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Creative Process Map Phase One Explore Solutions: Design Primary Research for Preferred Investgation
Project Brief
Assigned Team
Interrogate Brief Page 28
Explore Solution : Best Practice Solution
Material Engagement: Ethical Approval Application
Secondary Research Tasks Find Out: Secondary Page 29 Research Review Investigations Grid Point Page 34
Set up Trello Page 22 Critical Success Factors Page 29
Team: Kai’s Birthday Lunch
Team Create High Level Plan
Team: Weekly Plan Do Review
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Empathy Mapping Page 35
Disruptus Game Standard
Expert Input Page 35 Form Positions: Framing and selection criteria
Explore Solutions: Outline a methodology to pursue Briefs
Form Positions: Levels of Intervention
Find out: Surgery/ limate/ crisis future
Material Engagement: Summary of our 4 Briefs
Material Engagement: Toolkit of possible methods for Client meeting
Material Engagement: Prepare client brieďŹ ng pack for 1st review
Client Meeting Page 37
Material Engagement: Workshop Output Client Pack
Disruptus Surgery Version Page 41
Team Canvas Activity Page 23
Team: Weekly Plan Do Review
Create Problem/ Solution Phase Plan
Team: Brief Joe Team: Weekly Plan Do Review
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Strong Teamwork
Trello We adopted Trello as a team collaboration tool from the outset. ‘Cards’ were created for each task we planned to undertake, organised under project weeks and labelled according to project strand. Each card held checklists, attachments, deadlines and comments. As well as supporting task management, Trello became our team archive and a shared reflective log. 22
Plan Do Review Analyse
Team Canvas
We established a weekly discipline on Friday afternoons of reviewing progress in the previous week, analysing where we were at overall, planning where we needed to go and allocating tasks for the coming week. This helped us to maintain momentum as a team and served as a useful update for our tutors.
A team canvas session during week four helped us to explore what we wanted from the project- both individually and as a team. A key insight was recognising that we were the purpose of this brief, not our client; while we all wanted to deliver value to Cathy and her colleagues, we needed to do this in a way that supported our own development and learning objectives. We elected to leave the ‘roles’ sections blank at this stage, and update these once we had more definition on the shape of our project beyond Set-up.
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Strong Teamwork
High Level Plan Having established our three goals for the Set-up Phase, we worked backwards from them to identify what we would need to know and do to successfully achieve these. We turned these needs into a set of activities within the five streams of our plan, acknowledging the relationships and interdependencies between these.
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Kai’s Birthday Lunch Its not all about hard work of course! We took opportunities to spend time together outside the studio, learning more about each other as individuals. This helped to build empathy across our group and respect for each others’ different talents, ambitions and idiosyncrasies. For example, Kai celebrated his 24th birthday in May and we celebrated with lunch
in the sunshine at the Baltic followed by cupcakes, candles and a rendition of Happy Birthday back at the studio.
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Reflections
Strong Teamwork Through the set-up stage we made a substantial investment in planning, creating systems that would support us across the project. We were conscious that these systems needed committed habits to make them work for us, so we were deliberate in our practice, for example: •
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Every Friday afternoon we conducted our review as a group, writing up the PDR sheet and sharing it across the team and out to tutors. Across each week we referred to the PDR to create and update to-do lists, crossing off tasks as we completed them. This became our core tool day to day management, and also served a great way of keeping academic staff up to date with our work, for example, when Freddie visited us on Monday mornings, he was already primed with questions and insights having read our summary beforehand. We made sure our high-level plan was a project tool, not just a high level artefact, referring to it regularly to steer our decision making and activity. For example, our meeting agenda for the workshop with Cathy mirrored the Situation Opportunities we were targeting for the end of Set-up phase. At the same time, we were aware that we did not want to be bound by our plan, and allowed scope for fluidity and deviation in our day to day work together, while holding our general direction. Trello proved a really valuable tool, less for planning purposes and more for logging our actions, outputs and reflections. Again, a level of discipline here paid off, and at the end of the Set-up phase we were able to use Trello to rapidly reverse engineer our teams’ process and gather the insights required for this Project Log document. The addition of individual reflective insights into Trello activities alongside more evidence based information is also likely to be invaluable for each team member in preparing individual assignments.
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Find Out
Interrogate Brief
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Our first activity together as a team, we broke the brief down into a series of key words and phrases. Against each of these, we listed the questions that we thought we would need answers to in order to progress the brief. We analysed whether primary or secondary research- or both- would be required to answer these. This exercise gave us a framework for our ‘finding out’ activity during the Set-up phase, informing our research activity as well as our ethics application.
Critical Success Factors
Secondary Research Tasks
Having interrogated the brief to kick-off our project tasks, we revisited it to identify the critical success factors for our project. Instead of the detail contained in the words and phrases, we raised our attention to the high level intent, distilling each paragraph into a single idea. This gave us four CSFs
Grouping the questions that arose from our detailed interrogation of the brief, we constructed four research portfolios and each took responsibility for one of these.
• Credibility • Empathy • Selective and Targeted Practice • SMART value
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Hannah- Global Sustainable Surgery: patient safety, society, emerging best practice Jack- Wider NHS Drivers: procurement, equipment manufacturers, financial constraints, the estate Mairi- NHS Change Culture: stakeholder co-creation, staff mindset, participatory design research methods, implementation strategies Kai- Current Surgical Context: operating theatre environment, working practices, multi-disciplinary teams
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Find Out
Primary Research Questions
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We drew up a list of questions that could not be addressed through desk research. These were generally in the political or emotional realm, for example, where individuals believed the power base was or how staff felt about environmental challenges. There were also rational questions, for example about the specific practices and layouts that informed daily practice at Newcastle Trust. We considered the best research methods to find answers to these questions, which were fed into our Ethics application.
Ethics Application While it seemed counter-intuitive to submit our research design and requirements before we had fully come to terms with the brief and built our understanding, we recognised the time imperative. We considered the investigations we might want to pursue based on our primary research questions off of this. We also matched our questions to the type of research we would be doing. 31
Reflections 32
Find Out
Despite being constructed during a relatively quick exercise in the first couple of days, our Critical Success Factors proved to be prophetic and insightful across the project. They were a useful reference at points where we were stalling as a team or felt the need to validate the direction, we were taking. For example, when we were constructing our initial client workshop, we checked the CSFs to ensure all four were hard-wired into both the content of our work and the manner in which we presented ourselves to Cathy.
Having started with a very structured and specific approach to scoping out our primary and secondary research, we found that a less formal approach evolved. Our intent had been to create research packs and present outputs to each other, but this was eclipsed
by a more natural process where key data and insights were shared during conversations and team exercises. This more abductive/inductive approach required us to trust each other to introduce key information from our individual research portfolios at the right time to seed or support insights.
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Form Positions
Investigations Grid
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We considered all aspects of the operating theatre, generating initial hypotheses about waste, emissions and environmental impact within all of these. Some of our thinking was drawn from research and some was more instinctive and inductive. We sorted our ideas fitted into five categories: disposables, reusables, utilities, gases and medication. We further categorised these hypotheses by assumed root cause: the physical environment, individual choice or procedure. This grid was the genesis of our framing activity.
Expert Input
Empathy Mapping
To supplement our desk research and build on our initial insights, we wanted to speak to individuals involved in the surgical field. We reached out to Lloyd Howell who runs the Operating Department Practitioner diploma course within NU’s Nursing, Midwifery and Health department.
To help us understand the key actors involved in the operating theatre situation, we worked as a group to complete Empathy Maps. These were not evidence based, but drew on our assumptions and beliefs about roles and responsibilities, helping us to understand the clinical, financial and social pressures that clinicians work under and how they might impact attitudes to sustainability. 35
Form Positions
Zombie Apocalypse We then explored the positions of if we took climate change very seriously. So rationing resources and not operating on people over a certain age. We code named this our zombie apocalypse scenario.
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Client Meeting With Cathy’s help in our client meeting we chipped away at where we needed to explore, materialize and understand.
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Reflections
Form Positions Contacting operating theatre practitioners and experts became complicated due to ethics considerations; we didn’t achieve final clearance until 6 weeks into the project. We were able to work internally with Lloyd at NU Coach Lane, who was very helpful and gave us access to the simulation suite used by ODPs in training. As a physiotherapist who has worked on several continents, Hannah has excellent links into the health community and was willing to leverage these to gather insights and opinions- however, we used these links cautiously through a series of informal conversations about our project as opposed to engaging individuals as formal research participants. A key insight from our Empathy Mapping exercise was the role of the patient as an actor within the situation. How do we define patients? Surely in the eyes of the NHS, we are all patients in waiting? We recognised that, while many people might actively support the idea
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of a lower impact operating theatre, an individual’s agency and ability to exercise choice reduces as they get physically and temporally closer to that environment- ultimately disappearing as they are anaesthetised. Once diagnosed and on a clinical pathway, individuals are less likely to put utilitarian environmental concerns and long term health of the planet ahead of concerns for their own health- or indeed the health of loved ones. Therefore any research or evidence from a patient’s perspective would need to carefully separate the objective, hypothetical views of people not directly involved in the situation- the potential patients- from more self interested views of those about to go under the surgeon’s knife. 39
Explore Solutions
Planning Our Phases While developing briefs we set out phases which would lead on to each other in order to achieve the eventual goal.
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Innovation Game Day
Innovation Game Development
We for fun then played a game called disruptus where we create, change or improve current products. We did this try and make us think differently about our surgical products.
Taking this game Hannah and Jack decided to create our own version. We made our own cards involving surgical equipment and played it to see what we could create.
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Reflections
Explore Solutions Exploring the potential briefs we could create we ended up creating ourselves a good direction and the chance to tackle different areas instead of focusing on just one, we thought this would be best to show to Cathy in order to see what she was most interested in and wanted us to focus on most. We liked this not only for Cathy but for ourselves as it created a plan for us to follow and have one thing leading to another with nothing being unnecessarily wasted. Disruptus was a good distraction to take us away from our typical way of thinking, it let the group have fun and a break from the usual work and thought direction. This game of course developed into our own creation and let us enjoy developing products and ideas for the project without feeling like we were.
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Material Engagement
Client Meeting Our first meeting with are client Cathy was approaching, so we looked at toolkits of possible methods we could use for the client meeting many of which we used.
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Client Packs For Meeting
Spring Formating
We created a client pack containing all 4 areas we could potentially target along with what level of we should be looking at for Cathy to choose, as the levels would effect the output. These areas were agreed and discussed and gave us a good idea that we were on the right tracks and where we should head next.
Adapt the sprint format to a virtual design stroll so that we would replicate the outputs for individuals who had limited time and could only participate for brief amounts of time.
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Material Engagement
Recruiting Package For ODP Here we created our recruitment package for the ODPs, meant to be like a sprint, however take place over a long period of time. The pack was meant to inform them of what we were doing and how they can help us by completing the tasks set. 46
Our Results From The First Wave Here the stroll began with the first wave of exercises being sent to the participants, the exercises did receive engagement, however it was not as much as we had liked and not as disruptive as we had hoped with most ideas being related to plastic in the kitchen and little about the surgical environment.
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Reflections
Material Engagement In preparation for our first meeting with Cathy we put together a lot of work and created a client package that showed everything we had been doing and what we wanted to continue doing. This was all received well and it appeared that Cathy was pleased with what she had been shown. We learn what else she would like us to do and what directions we should keep pursuing. We considered that we had influenced her but there are any so many variables to play with in an operating theatre and therefore couldn’t have been the case. The main danger which we were fully aware of was a lack of engagement with the ODP’s with
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a lot of work up to this point being narrowed in on this activity to gain a lot out of it to then expand on once more. We liked our design stroll idea, however we were not sure how successful it would be until the responses came back and showed what interest and imagination the ODP’s had.
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Critical Success Factors
Achieve Credibility- We spent several sessions structuring a research framework to draw out the questions that we wanted to answer through desk and primary research, as well as contacting experts to act as ‘proxies’ for our time-poor client. Behave With Empathy- Before we had a chance to engage stakeholders, the empathy mapping exercise helped us to put ourselves in the shoes of key actors- surgeon, anaesthetist, ODP and patient. This brought emotional and political lenses in addition to fact-based research.
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Target Our Practice- We collated a number of methodologies according to their teleology and appropriateness for time-poor participants in advance of our first client meeting. This meant we were rapidly able to select preferred approaches with her. Materialise Value- The four research briefs- medication, waste, overage, utilities- along with the levels of intervention model helped us to engage our client in a targeted way, rapidly putting us on the same page in terms of the value we could deliver
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Phase Two
Problem/Solution Evolution
Problem/ Solution Phase During this stage of the project, we began our second phase being the problem solution phase. This came after our meeting with Cathy where we decided to create our plan to tackle the three project areas we agreed. These being project A,B and C which we set a timeline to follow in order to complete. This phase we did research such as simulator visit, surveys, workshops and made the online tools we would need to complete this phase and get the knowledge we needed.
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Milestones
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• We created our online interactivities for the staff to engage with and give us feedback. • We held our workshop at the Freeman and had much feedback. • We created our stakeholder communication poster.
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Adapt Sprint Format To Virtual Design Stroll Stakeholder Communications Poster Develop Odp Recruitment Comms Exploring Online Collaboration Tools Develop Sprint Remote Activities For Participants Build Online Survey For Remote EngagementNu Students And Wider Community 7. Virtual Exercise 1 Deployed 8. Review Survey Responses 9. Reframe Workshop Methodology 10. Collate Best Practice Ideas Into Frames 11. Client's Purpose For Workshop 12. Workshop Planning 13. Generate Workshop Material 14. Workshop Run Throughs 15. Workshop 1 On 19th June 16. Consolidate Workshop Outputs 17. Planning, Scoping And Dependencies For All 3 Projects 18. Workshop Debrief 19. Virtual Exercise 2 Deployed 20. Compile Feedback From Remote/survey Activities 21. Client Workshop/meeting 22. Create Plan For Phase 2 23. Workshop Summary Client Pack
24. Validate Plan With Client 25. Develop Brief For Project B- Paediatric Cardio-thoracic Packs 26. Project B Potential Questions/provocations 27. Client Chose Pre-packaged Kit For Project B 28. Pictures Of Central Line Kits Used In Several Hospitals 29. Visit Operating Theatre Simulator 30. Suspect Practices List 31. Checklists From Lloyd 32. Insights And Paradoxes 33. Suspect Practices List 34. Ongoing Idea Wall 35. Agree Project Log Format 36. Creative Process Ma�p 37. Ethics Approval Came Through 38. Ethics Conversation 39. Pictures Of Central Line Kits Used In Several Hospitals 40. Create A Summary Pack Of Workshop Outputs 41. Skype Call With Cathy 42. Paper Based Exercise 1 And 2 Taken To The Freeman Hospital For Staff To Complete 43. Stand Up Morning Briefing 44. Plan Do Review 55
Strong Teamwork
Problem Solution Plan Together we scoped out our plan for the problem solution phase where we planned the streams for project A,B and C. we all agreed on dates and tasks we would have to complete separate to the group to eventually come together.
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Team Canvas Completion
IKEA Adventure
We completed the team canvas. This was important for our team since we completed what wanted from wanted from the project section and also what we should expect from our team members. It made it clear that we expected everyone to pull there wait.
Our lunch and design game at ikea, we had to go through the store and find one item we thought was very well designed and another we thought was terribly designed. Which we explained at the end over meatballs.
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Strong Teamwork
Phase 1 Map Here as a team we took our trello activities and mapped out our phase 1 setup phase, we did this together and for the purpose of showing how every activity lead on to another.
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Enfields Lunch Mairi and our team organised for all of the MDI team members wanting to come to Enfields for lunch. We wanted MDI members to stay in contact with each other despite the different groups we were all in.
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Reflections
Strong Teamwork Planning our phase 2 helped all of us know what was expected of the group and what we would have to do in the time period we allocated ourselves. This in itself was useful since it put us all on the same page and made us more of a team because we knew what everyone else was doing while we worked our own work streams. The team canvas made us feel more like a team as we listed each others abilities and what we wanted from each other. It opened up to each other are perspective of the situation instead of just moving forward assuming each others positions on the project and achievable outcomes.
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The ikea trip was simply a way to break the pattern and to have fun outside MDI, we all had a good day and even made it design based through the game we played. The mapping of phase 1 showed us how much we had done. It made us realise how good a map of everything we’ve done could look as it would really show our process.
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Find Out
Simulator Visit Here we went to the simulator to meet Lloyd and see how nurses and ODP’s are trained. Lloyd showed us the environment they learn in and what lots of standard packaging looks like to give and idea of what we are dealing with.
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Online Engagement
Potential Questions
We built an online survey for remote engagement, NU students and the wilder community. Alongside this virtual exercise 1 was made a deployed.
Created questions for the project B we would need to learn in order to go more forward with the project and develop the central line kit.
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Reflections
Find Out What we thought would be a simple visit to a simulator turned into a very enjoyable experience as loyde our guide was very engaged and happy to keep showing us tools and examples of poor design and none necessary extensions. This and contradictions like with blood pressure cuffs and leg cuffs. We kept good contact with Lloyd and he continued to be very helpful. Our online survey that we wanted people to engage with was not as successful as we had hoped. People did not put many ideas outside there comfort zone and clearly didn’t want to be filling it out.
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Form Positions
Project B Here we developed a brief for project B, to lean standard surgical kit, with a set of questions for Cathy to establish how to move forward with it.
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The High Level Plan
Lloyds Issues
We developed a high level plan tp present to Cathy and agree the way forward over Skype.
Lloyd bug bears were things put forward by Lloyd and confirmed by our stakeholders as issues such as bear hugger and disposable drapes all of which we had to investigate.
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Form Positions
Paradoxes We established paradoxes in procedure and with equipment. We also established insights all of which needed to be investigated further.
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Kirins Issues
Workshop Methodology
We then contacted Hannah's friend Kirin who told us his bug bears for further investigation.
In preparation for the workshop, we found many reframing workshop methodology in preparation for our workshop where we new we would have to have people thinking differently.
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Reflections
Form Positions Here we began trying to form a plan to present to Cathy about what we would be looking into and if it was the right thing to be looking into in the first place. This was very much making sure our footing was stable so that we could move forward. This was also were we took in all the opinions from kirin, stakeholders and Lloyd to establish lines of enquiry. We found this effective as these opinions were that of experts and worth looking into.
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Explore Solutions
Best Practice Frames Here we collated best practice ideas into frames, the frames being systemic support, behaviour doing and source of waste. This helped gain an angle of how and what were the best way to tackle waste problems in hospitals.
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Explore Solutions
Idea Wall Here you can see the ongoing ideation wall; this our location to drop any ideas that popped into our minds while doing research.
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Freeman Workshop We arrived at the Freeman and did the workshop with the Freeman staff. We all enjoyed this including the staff since it was out of their usual schedule.
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Reflections
Explore Solutions Exploring best practice and framing them showed us what directions hospitals were using to rid waste weather it individual behaviour or systemic support. It helped show that rules in some countries were different to here and everything was still fine in there infection control. This opened us up and thought it would be good to show people at the next workshop this and not tell them that this is actually happening. Working with Freeman staff in the workshop gave us good insights about our ideas and what they thought was possible, especially when we said they didn’t have to think about infection control, it meant we could bounce ideas off people without waiting for responses. We made a lot of progress from this day.
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Material Engagement
Further Engagement We developed ODP recruitment comms to further engage with the Freeman staff. This included our ideation game which the staff can play to further change what they are doing and how they look at day to day equipment.
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Communication Poster
Our Creative Process
We completed our stakeholder communication poster which gave all the people taking part in our work aware of what we were doing.
We created the beginning of our creative process chart which we felt showed how much we had done and how each thing was used to take us to the next and not wasted.
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Material Engagement
The Sprint Continues We were concerned by low engagement with the online activities however, decided to move forward with exercises 3 and 4. Alongside this we dropped off paper copies hoping it would make access easier and more engaging.
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Summary Pack We created a summary pack of all our workshop outputs which we took away and analysed in order to move forward with the new knowledge to design the pain points to research for when we visited and watched surgeries in the Freeman. The rest went to our action map to go along with the briefs.
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Reflections
Material Engagement In this phase it was mainly preparation for the up and coming workshop. We felt as though we had created a lot of engaging information and activities for our stakeholders. We learned that you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, this is what happened with our online activities. We did not receive the engagement we had hoped for, However the paper copies were a bit more effective. The lesson being don’t expect engagement and always have a backup plan which we did.
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Critical Success Factors
Achieve Credibility- We were careful not to use the small amount of knowledge we had gained in any dogmatic way. During our workshop, best practice and insights were used to provoke conversation not to tell or preach. Behave With Empathy- We always tried to meet participants ‘where they were at’. During the survey phase, this meant downgrading our expectations on the data we would collect. During the workshop with meant making time for the ‘polystyrene and plastic cutlery issue, as it was important to them.
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Target Our Practice- When designing our workshop, we considered the exercises in terms of both research outcome and participant experience; how would individuals feel discussing or challenging these issues with outsiders? Materialise Value- We were careful to capture workshop outputs in a high-quality format. By using attractive ‘designerly’ cards we made participants feel valued during the exercises and collated visually appealing first-hand evidence of individuals voices for our client to retain.
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Phase Three
Strategy Development
Develop Strategy Phase While the first two phases were quite definite in terms of start and completion dates, phases three and four were less discreet, intermingling at times as sub-projects came to fruition on different timescales. Having agreed a value scaffolding approach around three sub-projects, this phase focused on gathering the data, engagement and focus that would be required to materialise a change in circumstance in these areas. Our effort centred on
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3
• for Project A- Patient Journey; validating and socialising the pain points identified in the initial workshop and creating a high impact infographic poster in preparation for a showcase sessions at the July Audit Day at the Freeman Hospital
• for Project B- Leaning the Central Line Kit; delivering the workshop that we had begun to construct, based on a blend of practical questions and design provocations
• for Project C- facilitating Cathy and Ian through a planning session to build their project portfolio based on initiatives suggested in the workshop and projects already in train, and turning the output into a Transformation Map that could be shared with colleagues
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Creative Process Map Phases Three & Four Waste Management with Jason Mitchell 'briefs' Collected In Templates From Cathy, Ian And Lisa
Patient Journey Infographic Patient Journey Page 109 Map
'Briefs' IdentiďŹ ed In MDI Or At Workshop High Level Plan For 3 Projects, Final 6 Weeks
Analyse outputs from Friday's meeting
18-24 Month Planning Meeting With Client
Ethics Of Ethnographic Research/perio perative Observations
Project C -
Resources on Ethnographic research from Anthropologist (Emily Tupper)
Transforma Transformation Map tional Map Page 109
Areas of focus for patient journey observations/ ethnography
Phase 2 Log Map
Ian and Cathy T-map updates
Contact Lloyd again to gauge interest in collaborating with Cathy to integrate sustainability into new ODP curriculum
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Link Cathy and Lloyd via email re: sustainability in curriculum
Surgery Shadowing at Freeman
Gathering observations from patient journey into spreadsheet
Building our infographic
Preparation Tuesday to prepare for visit to the freeman for more workshop engagement 18th
How Might We.. Page 105
Explore Solutions: 'How Might We' activity Freeman Sta Engagement Department Audit with sustainability day July 18th initiatives voting (Meeting 8-9) and poster engagement materials in breakout area
Pain Point Card Analyse
Convergent vs
Divergent Convergent/Divergent Ethnography plan/template Exit Analysis /discussions Page 101
Canada Day Celebrations
Team: Weekly Plan Do Review
Contact Chemistry Professor Justin Perry
Presentation Client Presentation Presentation To MDI Preparation Page Academic 133 Team/classm ates - July 30
Explore Solutions: Visit Chemist Justin About Chemicals Inert
Team BBQ Page 117 Northumbria Water Innovation Festival
Team: Weekly Plan Do Review
BBQ In The Sunshine By The Seaside At Mairi's
Team: Weekly Plan Do Review
Team: Weekly Plan Do Review
Team: Weekly Plan Do Review
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Strong Teamwork
Dynamic Plan For Final 6 Weeks Coming out of the Problem/Solution Phase, we had 6 weeks remaining. We worked with a week by week plan to ensure we had time to deliver all the remaining activities under each of our projects.
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Dean and Daniela’s
Assigning Roles
This deli round the corner from the Freeman became our go-to spot after meetings and events at the hospital. We debriefed over legendary sandwiches including Jack’s personal favourite- chicken, bacon, pesto and mozzarella… “best sandwich ever, incredible!”
Having moved forward as a team across the project, it was becoming evident that we needed to branch out on our own to get stuff completed on time (baby designers growing up??). We took responsibility for individual tasks, with Jack owning the log, Mairi and Hannah are crafting the report and Kai taking on a product design brief.
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Reflections
Strong Teamwork Its fair to say that many of our structured disciplines started to wane during the final weeks of the project. Friday afternoon plan do review sessions became increasingly inconsistent and our enthusiasm for updating Trello began to flag. However, this feels understandable. Whereas the early stages had entailed so many lines of investigation and so much ambiguity, by now we were all quite clear what needed to be done and had a week by week plan in place to ensure we did it. Our chaotic ‘squiggly line’ prices was evening out as we began to converge on the final stages and project management became more about task completion than sense-making.
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During the final weeks, we had several group discussions about whether the project was helping us to scaffold our own next steps- especially in light of the criteria in the individual assignment to cast ourselves into project plans going forward. This led to a team decision for Kai to pursue an independent piece of work, leveraging his product design skills to look at alternatives to the ubiquitous syringe. We continued to look for opportunities to get out of the studio and share meals, coffees and the odd beer together.
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Find Out
Expertadvice From Anthroplogist Hannah reached out to an anthropologist friend for advice about ethnographic research in advance of our surgical visit. Her advice- “pretend you are an alien, don’t take anything for granted, stay curious, write things down.” She also pointed us at some helpful reference literature.
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Surical Visit
Waste Management Visit
During a visit to the operating theatres at the Freeman we followed individual patients from the day ward into the surgical area. We changed into scrubs to observe procedures, moving from the anaesthesia room to the theatre then on to recovery.
A follow-up visit to the Freeman involved a tour of the waste and laundry storage areas, where we witnessed the scale of disposal and waste processing that goes on behind the scenes.
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Reflections
Find Out Our visit to the operating theatres at the Freeman Hospital was undoubtedly the highlight of the project. When we first received the brief, we had joked about being allowed into surgery but never thought that it would happen, and considered it a real honour to be invited. During the visit, we were all quite shocked to see just how deeply embedded single use items were in the day to day running of the Department. There were few quick wins here- it was apparent that change was going to require careful unpicking of existing procedures and, frankly, a lot more work for individuals as single-use goes hand in hand with convenience.
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We were offered the opportunity for a second day in surgery but chose instead to visit the waste disposal area of the Freeman- the bowels of the hospital. We were so glad we did. Jason, the waste manager, gave us a tour of the back corridors behind theatres where waste and linens go for processing. He showed us the collection points for various waste streams, explaining the way he works with each contractor to minimise environmental impact. Seeing the scale of this operation and how Jason and his team are left to deal with any unsustainable choices made further up the value chain- by procurement, for example- helped us to book-end the patient journey, and we chose to add procurement and waste to our infographic to highlight this to clinicians. 97
Form Positions
Ethnographic Template In preparation for our surgical visit, we developed a template to record our observations, to help ensure we came away with a consistent data set. This included questions for each of the perioperative environment as well as specific tools and products that had been highlighted at the workshop as pain points
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Initiative Briefs for Planning session
Circle of Influence Activity
To prepare for our planning session with Cathy and Ian, we asked them to complete a template for each of the initiatives that they wanted to take forward from the workshop suggestions, as well as for any initiatives already in train.
During our planning session, we used the completed brief templates in ‘circle of influence’ exercise, where Cathy and Ian plotted each one according to the level of control/agency they felt they had to take it forward.
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Form Positions
Convergent/Divergent Exit Analysis With the project coming into its final weeks, we had to be discipled during our surgical and waste visits. We discussed how best to leverage these as opportunities for convergence, gathering the evidence and data required for strategic implementation rather than a further level of divergence. We recognised the next wave of investigations belonged to our clients, not us, and our responsibility was to prepare for exit 100
Constructing Our Patient Journey We conducted a detailed analysis of our observations from the surgical visit, pulling down the qualitative and quantitative information from our ethnographic observation sheets. We focused on concerns that has been raised by staff during our initial workshop and that we had observed for ourselves during our surgical visit, giving two levels of validation. 28 pain points went forward onto our final patient journey infographic, 101
Reflections
Form Positions For Project C, building a portfolio of potential initiatives and looking at these in terms of their personal power to influence these was a new way of working for Cathy and Ian. This planning approach put them right at the centre of things- the ambition they set was their own. By asking them to consider the degree of agency they had to enact the various initiatives that they wanted to pursue, they naturally started to consider the stakeholders who would be required to deliver outcomes and the associated milestones along the way.
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Following our surgical visit, we had a wealth of new information towards Project A, the Patient Journey. This could have been a wonderful start point for deeper investigations had we had more time; and we did pause to regret that our project moved so slowly at the front end, waiting a full month for Cathy to engage. Given where we were at, we had to be disciplined and our focus was on using the data to support convergence, with key pain points articulated into our Infographic for socialisation and discussion at the July Departmental Audit Day.
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Explore Solutions
Northumbria ODP Programme Having identified that the Operating Department Practitioner (ODP) programme at Northumbria had no formal sustainability module, we encouraged collaboration between our clients and the senior lecturer to create one. This is now being built.
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Product Design Brief
How Might We..
As our brief was broad and once-removed in nature, we wanted to show our client how a designer might respond to a more specific brief. Kai built one for minimising syringe use.
Using our patient journey infographic, we worked again with the original workshop participants, asking ‘how might we’ • use lessons from the past • influence big pharma
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Reflections
Explore Solutions During our early research we identified from various formal and anecdotal sources that successful change in the NHS typically comes from within. ‘Not invented here’ plays out strongly, with clinicians dismissing ideas and solutions imposed from outside. This resonated with us- we saw that the path to rapid failure and loss of credibility was to start bringing our own solutions into an environment full of highly trained professionals with years of clinical experience. Instead, we chose to work once-removed, with our role in the co-creation partnership focused on provoking ideas and materialising insights- not offering solutions. This seemed to be highly effective and we believe that our acceptance of our naivety in a medical setting was key to gaining credibility. For example, during the Transformation Map exercise, all of the discussion and decision making about what initiatives to take forward on the plan was focused on Cathy and Ian. It was, after all, their plan to own and deliver. What we offered was a process that helped them to think in a structured way and material evidence gathered from their colleagues to guide their thinking.
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The exception to this was the product brief that Kai worked on during July. As a product designer, he was keen to flex his skills and we saw value in showcasing to Cathy and Ian what might happen if they approached a design community with a more targeted, tighter brief. During our surgical visits we had seen how many syringes are used (we lost count after 16…) for just a few seconds each to transfer drugs from sealed vials to a patient’s canula in the anaesthesia room. All of these then need to be inensively cleaned to remove pharmacological traces before being incinerated. Surely there was a better way ...
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Material Engagement
Engagement Poster The engagement poster asked individual how they would like to be communicated with in relation to ongoing sustainability work in the Department. Each person had two ‘votes’.
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Transformation Map
Patient Journey Infographic
During our planning session, we used the completed brief templates in ‘circle of influence’ exercise, where Cathy and Ian plotted each one according to the level of control/agency they felt they had to take it forward.
The infographic that we created for the Patient Journey collated observed pain points by their location within the patient journey. It also included ‘naïve’ observations from ourselves as ‘child-like’ observers, alongside some key best practice examples from our research activities.
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Reflections
Material Engagement Our infographic for the patient journey was an impactful piece, stretching about four metres across. We had designed it specifically to maximise engagement and its size and colourful design most definitely contributed to its impact. It was hung on the atrium wall during Departmental Audit Day, and visited by groups on rotation, interspersed with routine fire-safety activities. As we were competing with a real fire engine and fire extinguisher discharge training, we were delighted at the level of interest the infographic generated. From our first meeting, our client Cathy articulated that she wanted to do ‘everything’ and didn’t know where to start. Working with her and Ian to create the Transformation Map was our opportunity to help create order and clarity within the over-arching – and potentially overwhelming- mission to create sustainable operating theatres. We collated multiple
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activities and initiatives by stream- research, rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle- and by year, up to 2022. By using workshop outputs as their start point, they had a built-in mandate for many of the initiatives. By working out from their own point of influence, they knew that the milestones they were naming had a chance of being achieved.
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Critical Success Factors during Set-Up Phase Achieve Credibility- We like to think that the invitation to visit surgery was in some way a response to the credibility that we had built up with the client over the first two months of the project. Behave With Empathy- Our strategy was based on our belief that the clinicians themselves had the answers and the agency for change- we were simply there to provoke and amplify
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Target Our Practice- Working with workshop participants for a second time at the July Audit Day, we were able to use some more advanced design-thinking approaches as they were more comfortable working in this way Materialise Value- The patient Journey Infographic and the Transformation Map represented the key research outcomes of Projects A and C
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Phase Four
Communications
Communications Phase As was previously explained, Set-up and Problem/Solution phases had more distinct start and end points in our minds, we saw phases 3 and 4 of the framework running from after the workshop debrief on 21st June, where we agreed on three sub-projects, to the end of our work together on 9th August. Arguably communications cannot be cleanly packaged into a phase as we were in regular contact with our clients and external stakeholders for the length of the project. In Nick Spencer’s framework, phase 4 ends with a pitch. In this project, our pitch includes both our final presentation and report and the contents therein.
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4
For the sake of this log therefore, we highlighted key activities revolving around these final deliverables in the following section. Goals for this final phase had to consider what we wanted to present to our clients that would be of value to them but also satisfy the academic requirements of our degree. We decided we wanted to take our presentation audience on a journey through: 1. Where have we been? 2. Where are we now? 3. Where could it go?
The final report includes additional sections: Executive Summary; Our Project Brief and Approach; Sense-making; Project Challenges; Outcomes and Impacts; and Conclusion.
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STRONG TEAMWORK
Phase Mapping As a team we remained relatively disciplined with updating our tasks on Trello. When these cards were printed after the end of the phases, the team found it satisfying to draw lines representing both forward and backward relationships between the various activities. We called them our ‘tube maps’ which visually represent the non-linear process journey we took as a team across the project. 116
Team BBQ
Marking The End
We continued to take opportunities to socialise outside the four studio walls. We didn’t need any excuse to take advantage of one of the sunniest days of the year for a BBQ and a few bevvies with Mairi’s family at their home in Cullercoats.
After the final client presentation, the team set aside a week for working hard together to complete the group outputs: report and project log. We realised we all had different priorities and plans on different continents going forward and this would be our last chance to collaborate in person. This required a final week of focus and teamwork before moving on to individual assignments. It meant long days and nights in the library as well as some remote working and Skype chats.
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Reflections
STRONG TEAMWORK Time invested into planning and creating systems that would support us across the project was inarguably worth it. As a team we mostly maintained committed to helpful habits such as updating Trello and weekly PDRs. Printing Trello cards and mapping the phase process highlighted key relationships, correlations and significance and informed the insights that were added to key activities in our timeline (featured in both presentation and report). Content collected by these practices definitely assisted in creating and communicating a strong final pitch to our clients, academic staff as well as classmates. Because we only had about 30 minutes to present and maximum of 5000 words for our report, being concise and focusing on what would be most valuable for our clients was always key. As we’d genuinely worked co-creatively with hospital staff throughout the project, our clients were very much a part of our team.
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A strong theme for our team included structured planning and this also continued until the end. We mapped out the 3 sub-projects and held ourselves to account. We also knew that after the final presentation, we had limited time together to complete the project log and report as team members became reintegrated into non-student life and shifted focus onto individual assignments. Towards the end of the project, we informally revisited some of the information we’d put down on the Team Canvas. Kai is an Industrial Designer and it made sense for him to work on a design challenge which brought to life what might happen if our clients chose to tackle a specific problem, in this case considering the number of syringes used in the anesthetic room. Mairi brought expertise from her work experience into compiling and visualising a live transformation map. Of course, we consciously included fun activities up to the end as well! 119
Find Out
Inert Pharmacology
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Dr Baxter discussed the possibility of making used syringes into concrete bricks during one of our co-creative meetings. We then witnessed a large number of syringes used in the anesthetic room and saw the scale of pharmaceutical waste during our waste management visit. This triggered a meeting with a Northumbria University Chemistry Professor, Justin Perry. He explained that all pharmaceutical waste can be made inert, but of course this incurs a cost. He is happy to explore this further with our clients and an introduction has been made.
Pain Point Cards And Engagement Poster
Project B In A Box
We returned to the Freeman for July audit day, socialising our patient journey infographic. We collect feedback data from 56 members of the department, enabling us to assess their top 5 pain points, perceived root causes and barriers to change. Staff also voted for preferred ongoing engagement methods.
Although we didn’t book a date to run a workshop with paediatric cardiothoracic anaesthetists about making central line kits more lean, we provided our clients with a set of provocative questions which could assist them in finding out alongside their peers. We also provided a basic framework about the types of data they would want to creatively gather. ‘Surgicus Disruptus’ was added for a little fun! 121
Reflections
Find Out One could have hypothesised that the Find Out ‘line of action’ would taper off as we neared the end of the project. However, what began as finding out about best practices, the operating theatre and NHS more generally through desk research in Set-up turned into different types of enquiry in this phase. Initially we were trying to find out for ourselves, but this shifted to trying to find out for our clients. We took a passing comment about making concrete bricks out of used syringes and moved it forward. This involved making contact, having a meeting to find out what we could, and providing the link/introduction to Professor Justin Perry so that Drs Lawson and Baxter can pick up where we left off. Similarly, because we were not able to facilitate a workshop with
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paediatric cardiothoracic anaesthetists around making pre-packaged central line kits more lean, we shared what we’d already been working on. We transferred the tools we would have used to find out to our clients so they could do the same in our absence. We also continued to find out from the hospital staff themselves, which is important in any ground-up change initiative. We expanded our reach from our original 15 workshop participants in Problem/Solution phase to get opinions and valuable data from 56 members of the wider department. This information was shared in our final presentation and report.
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Form Positions
Transformation Map Validation Outputs form Project C planning sessions were documented into a PowerPoint format. We created this to be a live document, readily editable by our clients for maximum ownership; they have already updated it a few times. It was shown to the initial workshop participants in July and will be the cornerstone of the department sustainability audit day in November. 124
Sense-Making Session For Report
Prepare Presentation
Over the course of the project, we collected some high level themes: Fighting nature; Doctor knows best; Naive eyes; Reframing the clinical mindset; and Self-improving system. We spent time in a session linking activities that lead us to these themes and which recommendations fell underneath them.
Our clients had been with us across our journey, working co-creatively to deliver value at various milestones. As a result, our presentation focused on a summary of project activities, future opportunities based on our discoveries and high-level recommendations, rather than a ‘solution reveal’ or ‘pitch’ format.
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Reflections
Form Positions Here it becomes somewhat of a challenge to unpick where forming positions separates from exploring solutions given the type of brief we worked on. Cathy and Ian were fully involved in creating the Transformation map and then several updates and edits were shared between them but our team remained cc’d in the communications. For us this is evidence that we enabled them to form their own positions (while exploring solutions) and start to materialise a plan for their department over the next 3 years. In fact, most of the positions we ‘took’ were actually taken directly or evolved from Freeman Hospital staff. However, an example of where we as a team formed our own positions is in the 5 ‘sense making’ themes that are presented in our final report. They were not introduced in the final presentation due to time constraints, but formed over the course of several weeks on one
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of the walls of our studio space. For us, they helped collate discussions we’d been having into themes that articulate some of the complexity within the situation. We went to some dark places speaking about potential futures of healthcare rationing where it wouldn’t been deemed sustainable or appropriate to operate on an elderly person or save a very premature baby as examples. While we enjoyed these exercises, we didn’t feel our clients and their colleagues were quite ready to join us in this space and recognised if we pushed it too far, we might damage the rapport and respect we’d worked so hard to achieve.
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Explore Solutions
Recommendations
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We provided strategic recommendations for our client at five levels of intervention: individual, department, Trust, region and influencers. This reflected the ongoing project theme of increasing agency for change by expanding existing influence outwards. Almost all of the ‘solutions’ were initiated by staff at the Freeman Hospital and several were already being implemented. We were mindful to also highlight the potential for further work with design professionals in the future.
Collating Dynamic Outcomes of Project
Report
Our project was about helping our clients design a circumstance to accelerate and amplify the work they were already undertaking. We summarised the outcomes and impacts of our interventions across three categories; ‘dynamic impacts’, defined the changes and initiatives that started during our project. It is difficult to measure these, but we feel proud about the catalyst effect we had. These are listed in our report.
The final report aims to summarise the entire 3 month project and includes the following sections: executive summary, our project brief and approach, sense-making, project challenges, outcomes and impacts and a conclusion. While the sense-making themes are neither problem nor solution statements, they aim to articulate the complexity within the situation. 129
Reflections
Explore Solutions During Set-up phase, our group recognised the design challenge for this project was unique. It involved helping our clients to design a circumstance capable of accelerating and amplifying the work they were already doing. Therefore, exploring solutions was more about summarising the outcomes and impacts of our work. Feedback gained at various points in our project: after the first workshop; engagement with/data collected from our infographic presented at the department audit day, as well after our presentation evidenced we had acted as catalysts for change. Dr Lawson stated we helped them fast forward, likely due in some part to limited time they have to focus on side projects in addition to their clinical caseloads. We divided outcomes and impacts into three categoriesďźš:ďźš
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• Dynamic impacts changes and initiatives that started during our project Matteo suggested it would be a good idea to explicitly outline value our project had produced. Some of these things are difficult to measure and we may not be able to take full credit for their causality but regardless, they are now underway. • Deliverables key project artefacts and documents that we created in direct support of Dr Lawson and Dr Baxters’ mission Because the ‘solutions’ we presented were in most cases gathered from hospital staff, we felt it was empowering and important to provide the originals whenever possible as they were in participants’ own handwriting and are a testament to the ground-up nature of our project. • Recommendations strategic recommendations at various levels of intervention Levels of intervention recurred several times throughout our project. This aligns with micro/macro toggling that was discussed in earlier semesters.
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Material Engagement
Data Cards
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We designed cards to gather feedback from Freeman Hospital staff who engaged with our patient journey infographic poster. The cards were A5 sized, printed on heavier weight paper for ease of use. They had multiple choice options, tick boxes and spaces to write in numbers with limited space for free text. This made collating and analysing the responses and sharing the paired spreadsheet a simple process. We actually had to print extra cards throughout the morning as engagement was better than expected.
Client Presentation
Original Deliverables
Pulling our 3-month journey with Drs Lawson and Baxter into a 20-minute presentation allowed us to showcase the various methods and activities that we had undertaken and how these had built on each other. A timeline device showed the development of insights as we moved through key milestones, materialising the way in which our understanding of the situation matured. Presentation segments looked at ‘Where have we been’, ‘Where are we now’ and ‘Where could it go’.
We felt it was important to catalogue and preserve original workshop outputs and documents which included participants’ original sketches and handwriting- capturing the true ground-up nature of our work at the Freeman. These were handed over to our clients on our exit in both original and digitized format, giving them a strong evidence base of their mandate to take interventions forward. 133
Reflections
Material Engagement Function, ease of use, value to client as well as aesthetics were considered for all materials used to engage with our stakeholders through all phases of the project. Sometimes we purposely used software that was more readily available such as Microsoft PowerPoint, as opposed to design specific software to ensure everyone could open and not feel intimidated to use and edit. This allowed for true co-creation and iterations of prototyped materials. At the end of the project we had shared both digital and original copies of all material engagement tools used. We openly accepted and integrated feedback from different tutors about how to improve our presentation slides prior to the final delivery. Of course we also had to consider requirements of our degree and assigned group outputs when preparing the presentation, report and log. We feel as though we balanced this out
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and always thought about Drs Lawson and Baxter reading the report and whether it would be of any benefit and interest to them. We respect their time and therefore aimed to keep on the lower end of accepted the word count. We are also aware it is completely possible the report as well as other materials will be shared with other colleagues who were not part of the original project but may be interested in the outcomes, therefore, work that could stand alone and remain clear and concise was always a must.
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Critical Success Factors
Achieve Credibility - The report section ‘sense-making’ was not included in our presentation but delves into themes and insights at meta, macro, and micro levels. Our effort at trying to unpick and explore the ‘wicked’ situational complexity draws on literature from different fields, psychology and Zeitgeist and demonstrates academic rigour. Behave With Empathy - We recognise our clients are time-poor and therefore we purposely aimed to keep our final report closer to the 3000 word mark than the 5000 word mark. They will no doubt appreciate concise, useful information that complements activities they have already been part of along the way.
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Target Our Practice - The ‘pitch’ which concluded this phase was carefully crafted and executed. Deliberate practices we established early on as a team and continued until the end assisted with prioritising and summarising key elements. We aligned team member’s strengths and goals to tasks where possible. Materialise Value - In addition to the outcomes and impacts previously outlined, we feel value was also produced through introductions and links we made between our client and Northumbria University. We also laid the foundation for potential future projects with design students or professionals; thereby materialising value in layers further removed from the initial brief.
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Living Our Values Living our Values- how did we do? • • • • • • •
Embrace Questions Take Play Seriously Find your Voice and Use It Slow down to Speed Up Amplify Others Bring Your Generosity Trust Bravely
Mairi, Embrace Questions: Whenever things felt like they were going ‘too smoothly’ we took a step back to actively seek complexity, asking questions that challenged our insights and hypotheses. The conversation that became known as The Zombie Apocalypse was a great example, helping us to reframe our challenge in a future context.
Ta
We’ve tried to give value to others. We helped other MDI teams with workshop and research activities . We also thought about how our project might help the ODP training programme at Northumbria University. 138
-Using ga to pick up th some really d conversation robust insig pan lid c
Mairi, Take Play Seriously:
ames within the team helped he energy at key points- and daft ideas actually provoked great ns that delivered surprisingly ghts. Hannah’s pizza cutter and combo for example!
Kai, Trust Bravely: - Our different backgrounds and experiences give us different perspectives. Many times, our views are very different. But our mutual trust makes us dare to freely express our opinions to the team. Hannah, Amplify Others: - We considered strengths, goals and weaknesses individually and as a team while completing the team canvas. We used this to think about roles and activities going forward.
Jack, Trust Bravely: - We learnt each others abilities and over time new that we could rely on each other and expect people to do as much as was expected of them。。.
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