Case Study - IMPACT (by Lizzy Lee)

CASE STUDY

IMPACT Portal: A Website for Veterans at IMPACT N573 Health Care Innovation:

Foundations of

DESIGN THINKING! By: Lizzy Lee

TABLE OF CONTENTS Our Team Empathy Define Ideate Prototype Final Thoughts

3 4-5 6 7 8-9 9

This zine tells the Design Thinking journey that our team embarked on from September to December 2019. We spent several weeks on each stage to better understand our our stakeholders, end users, and ideas for solutions. Our team's nursing students had clinical experience with Veterans, which informed our compassion for Veterans struggling with homelessness. We had the opportunity to partner with IMPACT Services, which provides housing and social services to Veterans. Throughout the semester, we learned about the complexities of the homeless Veteran experience and IMPACT's role in helping them.

As we engaged in each stage of the Design Thinking process, we tried to center the needs and capacity of the Veterans living at IMPACT.

OUR TEAM LIZZY LEE DNP Program Manager Student, Graduate School of Education

MIRIAM GLICKMAN School of Engineering Class of 2021

MONICA ABER School of Nursing

Class of 2020 (BSN)

EMILY BEISSER School of Nursing Class of 2019 (ABSN)

GRACE CHONG Computer Science, College of Arts & Sciences Class of 2021

STEP 1: EMPATHY

Our main takeaways: -Communication from IMPACT leadership to Veteran residents can be improved - Attending groups (such as AA, NA, other Veteran groups) is helpful for recovery -The transition from homeless to IMPACT is very overwhelming and challenging. Veterans are going from focusing on daily survival to a radically different environment.

-IMPACT does not currently use any texting-based communication between Case Manager and Veterans, but they are interested in exploring it.

-Most Veterans have cell phones here.

For our team's first site visit, Lizzy and Monica went to IMPACT Services's main facility in Kensington. IMPACT is a housing facility for Philadelphia Veterans experiencing homelessness. They provide permanent and transitional housing. The case managers, social services, and support groups (like AA and NA) are located directly in the facility.

We spoke with the Executive Director and three Veterans.

For the 2nd site visit, Lizzy visited IMPACT's other housing facility in Kensington. She spoke with two veterans and three case managers.

Lizzy also spoke to two Veterans who were deeply dissatisfied with their experience with IMPACT and with getting VA services in general. They were most frustrated by long wait times to see mental health providers and lack of compassion and competency by employment coordinators unable to help find them jobs. Their anger and hurt were palpable.

We asked the case managers to complete a survey we we could better understand the struggles that Veterans at IMPACT face through their perspective. See below for their answers.

The hallway walls were filled with flyers for announcents, resources, job opporunities, and support groups

STEP 2: DEFINE Like all good design thinking, there was much convergence and divergence as we constantly reworked our understanding of the problem. We saw huge problems like homelessness, unemployment, addiction, lack of social support. We felt overwhelmed by these heartbreaking systemic issues and had to rework our idea of the problem statement many times for it to be both specific enough and feasible for us.

PROBLEM STATEMENTÂ I am a high-functioning Veteran living at Impact.

I am trying to follow a structured, daily routine.

But I am struggling to stay self-motivated, Because it is hard to keep myself accountable, Which makes me feel frustrated and alone.

STEP 3: IDEATE During the Ideate stage, we brainstormed as many solutions as we could, and then we categorized them by theme such as Tech, Employment, Clubs, etc. See below for our thought process.

We went back to our stakeholders (case managers and Veterans) and asked them for feedback on what we considered were our three strongest ideas. These ideas included a mentorship program, Veterans' garden, or giant community calendar in lobby. The case manager who got back to us suggested several different ideas that were more relevant to the Veterans' needs. We decided to focus on of her suggestion of helping Veterans attend their Monday morning case meetings and get reconnected to their group therapy. These meetings and groups are essential to a Veterans' recovery and personal growth while at IMPACT. This seemed most connected to our problem statement. We focused on finding a solution to help Veterans struggling with following a healthy daily routine, self-motivation, and accountability. Our team decided to design a Portal for Veterans to see all their upcoming meetings and events and get text message and/or email alerts reminding them to attend.

STEP 4: PROTOTYPE Our team first sketched out a prototype using sticky notes (see image on left). Then we used the platform Strikingly to build the Veterans' portal website, InVision to build the Case Manager-facing portal, and Zapier for the text message notifications.

Portal for Veterans

Veterans would be able to see their personalized calendar of upcoming community events, case manager meetings, and support group meetings.

A general IMPACT calendar with ALL events would also show. Veterans could also see information about their Case Manager, and the goal they set together in addition to other Veteran resources.

Portal for Case Managers

Case Managers could see their case load and tailor event notification settings for each Veterans' needs (e.g. only those struggling with Alcoholism would receive AA meeting notification). They can also add events and tag them.

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Veterans would receive text and/or email alerts to remind them to attend their events and meetings.

Prototype video link - https://youtu.be/tGuS06GROt8

STEP 5: TEST We tested our portal with several groups of classmates, and used the following questions to guide their feedback.

FEEDBACK FROM TESTING 1.) Is the caseworker website intuitive?

2.) How does the vet website make you feel?

3.) Is the vet website intuitive?

4.) What additional features would help clear up any confusion?

Likes -Straightforward -Intuitive -Not overwhelming -Mention social calendar right off the bat Suggestion/Questions -More specific goals -How to track attendance at meetings/event?

-What’s their incentive for reaching goals?

-It would be nice to see who else is attending the events

Based on the feedback, our team decided to limit attendance of events/meetings to only Case Manager meetings, since the Case Managers could mark attendance in their Portal.

Since our solution was made specifically for IMPACT Services, we wanted them to choose appropriate and financially feasible incentives for Veterans who reach their meeting attendance goal. this idea of encouraging routine and rewarding progress can be used for a variety of populations We hope our innovation will encourage veterans to get the help they need by reminding them to attend important meetings with Case Managers, health providers, and support groups. This will help Veterans adopt a structured lifestyle and gain more confidence to live independently. We want Veterans to use our Portal and notifications to feel more in control of their life by having a predictable daily routine that reduces anxiety and stress. We hope this technology facilitates stronger, more trusting relationships between case manager and Veteran.

Finally, we hope that Veterans at IMPACT can feel less alone and more eager to take advantage of each day through building community at IMPACT.