Improving the neo-natal experience for parents
NSW Health Agency for Clinical Innovation
Services provided
In-depth interviews
Research data analysis
Journey mapping
Information design
Photo by Gigin Krishnan
Background
The Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI) is the lead agency for innovation in clinical care in NSW. They bring patients, clinicians and managers together to support the design and implementation of innovation in healthcare. For this project, they wanted to explore ways to improve communication between families and the staff of neo-natal intensive care (NICU), including how best to use virtual care technologies.
The challenge
Parents of newborns in a NICU suddenly find themselves overwhelmed and exhausted in a very unfamiliar medical world. Their experience was usually traumatic their time in NICU extremely difficult.
The challenge was to summarise the findings and share back with staff, in a way that also acknowledged the hard work and stressful conditions in which they worked.
“We were completely overwhelmed. I’ve never experienced that level of peak stress ever.”
Photo by Nathan Dumlao
What we did
Review of the current literature and existing local resources.
Together with ACI, planned a series of in-depth interviews with recent NICU parents.
Designed a trauma-informed approach for the interviews.
Synthesised findings into a journey map to share with stakeholders.
Extracted and highlighted key findings and recommendations.
Curated the ‘best of’ existing resources into the design of an information hub.
Conceived new ways of using virtual care to improve communication with families.
The result
We were able to bring the voice of families to neo-natal staff, in a way that is not possible during the day-to-day of the busy and stressful environment. The information hub will become a toolkit for staff across NSW, helping them provide consistent communication with families.
“I know from lived experience that participants in this research would gain some benefit in being interviewed. They would feel heard”