Patient activity during COVID-19
Helping Adolescent and Young Adult patients improve their physical activity while quarantined
Client
Cincinnati Children's Hospital
Duration
4 months (2020)
Role
Team Lead, Design Research, Systems Design
Actions
Formed project goals
Created research plans and guides
Designed surveys
Conducted remote semi structured interviews
Developed archetypes
Analyzed quantitative data
Interpreted findings
Held ideation sessions
Developed system solutions
Integrated solutions into hospital workflow
Presented to stakeholders and client directors
Team
Babaljit Kaur, Communication design
Project Links
Problem
Due to COVID-19, Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) oncology patients have had their access to areas common for low intensity exercise ( mainly walking) restricted. Being physically active is an integral part of a cancer treatment plan. The result of these COVID restrictions has caused patients to make significant adjustments to how they are staying physically active. Some have been able to get creative with “getting in their steps” within the confinements of their inpatient rooms. However, most have had a very notable decrease to their daily physical activity since the pandemic began. We set out to help people get moving again.
Cincinnati Childrens AYA oncology patients were restricted to this quarter of their floor in the hospital.
AYA Patient Surveys
With the help of Cincinnati Childrens’s oncology team, we started designing a survey. We needed to gather actionable data as quickly as possible. AYA paitents can range from 15-39 years old. The demographics of our survey respondents were 23 individuals who ranged from the ages of 21-35. The mean age was about 28 years old.
Mixed Method Survey Analysis
We took the raw data from the survey and organized it into a spreadsheet. From here we analyzed the responses for common themes, patterns, and unique outliers. Our strategy was to first analyze all the answers to each specific question. We then took a look at the respondents themselves to get a better idea of their personal response to the survey as a whole. Finally we cross referenced both the questions and respondents to pull out any remaining findings. Once we had patterns emerge, we color coded themed hypotheses and the responses that fit them. This was done to get more quantitative data to base decisions.
Semi Structured Video Interviews
To better contextualize the survey data, we conducted video interviews with occupational and physical therapists. They interact with the AYA patient on a daily basis. These interviews were essential in getting a better picture of daily AYA life due to the Covid restrictions. Discussion themes included the current OT/PT experience, patient behavior, and changes since Covid began.
Findings
Archetypes and Insights
After accessing each participants overall response to the survey, we grouped each individual into a motivational archetype. This helped us build a better picture of our users and focus on problems specific to each grouping. Next we compared the insights to the archetypes. We ordered all of the insights from highest to lowest priority ( Top to bottom) for each motivational group. This gave us user center priorities for concept creation.
Solutions
Reflection
This project was about quickly adapting to fluctuating situations. Ideas needed to be highly scrutinized in terms of feasibility to implement quick enough. We relied heavily on front loading the research to compensate for lack of physical access to the testing environment and primary stakeholders. I learned how powerful mixed method analysis is to generate informed insights. You really need both sides of a research (quantitative and qualitative) to extract meaning from data. When we interviewed domain experts ( Physical and Occupational therapists) it shed a lot of light on the survey data that we would not have been able to see. Thanks to the work of both the Live Well and Cincinnati Children’s team, these solutions are now being implemented into the daily life of the oncology patients in the hospital.
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