The Rehabilitation Journal is a document which can be used by patients, their families and clinicians to guide the patient through their rehabilitation journey. It supports the patient in developing their goals and plans for rehabilitation and enhances communication with their rehabilitation team.
Challenge
To introduce a scalable, patient-empowered tool to the new trauma service in the Mater University Hospital, Dublin. With staff resources sometimes lacking, and patients feeling understandably overwhelmed by new surroundings and a new physical condition, the challenge of rehabilitation is an uphill battle.
Goal
The goal for this project was to work with a team of trauma clinicians in order to create a tool that truly supports the patient through their rehabilitation journey. We wanted to create a support that allowed patients to feel empowered, a touchpoint for staff, patient and family to connect through.
Approach
I carried out a systematic review of existing national and international patient journals. With the greater team, established the fundamental key elements to include in the journal before lo-fi prototyping. Multiple iterations were created before trialling the finished prototype with ward patients. This will allow clinicians to receive feedback and gain insight into changes needed to improve the document.
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Pinned to my work monitor as a guiding principle
Process
The team are often time poor due to stretched resources in the public healthcare system. We had a one hour session every two weeks. Prior to each meeting I would recirculate the updated document with a detailed email in order to allow the team to individually review it on their own time. This afforded the team to better prepare for our session and use our time as productively as possible.
An initial review of existing patient journals
Starting point: the key fundamental elements to start the design
Iteration boards: for forth-nightly review sessions
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