Care Management Strategy
participatory design to improve Medicare digital resources
Overview
For one of my consulting projects, I took on a new role as a customer experience strategist. We involved 15 Medicare members and 2 caregivers in the participatory design process to learn about their post-discharge journey, digital habits, and relationships with their health insurers.
Our research findings informed a strategy deck that helped our client envision digital solutions that meet Medicare members' needs.
TOOLS
Mural, Zoom, Figma
Skills
participatory design, interviews, research synthesis, personas, strategy
time
12 weeks, winter 2022
Solution
Persona and strategy deck informed by participatory design sessions with 15 Medicare participants.
Problem
The health insurer client sought a strategy to digitally engage their Medicare patients.
Client Needs
Associate Interviews
Participatory Design
Synthesis
Strategy Development
Digital Solution
Process
I joined the project after the initial client meetings and interviews with Insurer Nurse Associates. These steps set the foundation for my team's understanding of the post-discharge process, as well as created initial hypotheses for where members might appreciate digital support from insurer nurses.
I was brought on to plan and conduct the participatory design sessions with insurance members. After the conclusion of the sessions, I stayed on to synthesize our session data. Our contract concluded after this step, leaving our client to determine how they wanted to implement the digital solutions.
Background
Themes
Based on the associate interviews, my team determined six themes to explore in the co-design sessions. We aimed to better understand members' experiences in each theme and how we might our client could improve in those areas.
1
Awareness & Expectations
Post-Discharge Complexity
Digital Acess & Appetite
2
3
4
Social Factors
Continuity of Care
Relationship & Trust
5
6
Participatory Design
Before I joined the project, there was a pre-determined structure for the participatory sessions. Each participating member would participate in 2 two-hour co-design sessions and 5 days of texting homework. The first co-design session was to learn more about the participant's post-discharge journey and to build rapport, while the homework and second co-design session would be built along the way based on what we learned from the first session.
I prioritized interview topics, consolidated them into rich interview questions, and accompanied the questions with Mural board stimuli.
Co-Design 1
Co-design 1 focused on building rapport with the participants and understanding their post-discharge journey. I was responsible for preparing and personalizing the Mural boards for each participant and note-taking during the sessions.
Session summary:
2 hrs - 45 min interview, 1 hr 15 min Mural activities
18 members, 3 caregivers
Notetaker for 12 sessions
One challenge we faced was that not all participants received an insurer nurse call as they had indicated on the screener. As a result, we had to recruit new participants on a tight timeline.
Activity 1: participants map their post-discharge journey
Activity 2: participants map the people in their support network
"I'm not good at asking for help. They didn't wait for me to call them...being proactive and caring reinforces it's a good company."
"I feel like [my insurer] is going out for the cheapest, shortest thing they possibly can, no matter what you may need."
"It would have been a lot easier to deal with recovery if everything was in place as it should have been. I want to be able to rely on my insurer."
participant quotes
Homework
After the first co-design session, members were asked to engage in 5 days of homework, which involved my team asking a few questions over text messaging. The goal was to better understand members' daily lives and fill in any gaps in information that we didn't cover in co-design 1.
I wasn't involved in conducting the homework for HIPAA and privacy compliance reasons. However, I was still able to read the transcripts and synthesize the responses with the co-design data. In the meantime, I worked on developing co-design 2.
example homework transcript that shows how a member engages with their health insurer digitally
Co-Design 2
Co-design 2 objectives were to have members rank their health and insurer values, to understand their relationship with their insurer, and to test some preliminary digital concepts. Like the first co-design session, I helped inspire the co-design activity stimuli, created individual boards for each participant, and took notes for a majority of the sessions. I also used my UX design expertise to design wireframes that exemplified three concepts of how our client's insurer nurses could improve communication with members based on their reported pain points in co-design 1.
Session summary:
2 hrs of Mural activities and concept testing
15 members, 2 caregivers
Notetaker for 8 sessions
Co-design 2 board
Activity 2: comparing text message vs chat bot insurer interactions
Synthesis
Strategy Deck
The prior associate interviews, the 2 co-design sessions, and the homework created hundreds of data points that expressed members' desire for increased digital engagement with their health insurers. We included these in a strategy deck that reviewed opportunities and steps for our client to implement new digital solutions.
Developing strategy is usually outside of the scope of my role and expertise; however, my past experiences in user research enabled me to significantly contribute to data synthesis.
example slide for a digital engagement concept proposal
Meet the participants deck
Alongside the strategy deck, my team made a deck that included a profile for each participant. We wanted our client to truly understand Medicare members and how they navigate their health. I owned the progress of this deliverable, populating it with data throughout the co-design process and supporting our healthcare research consultant with the storytelling.
Each participant had 5 sections to their profile:
intro / summary
life + health outlook
digital health (habits, devices, opinions)
discharge experience
how our client can engage the participant
All real names and identifying information were removed.
example slide of a participant's discharge experience
Reflection
I was brand new to the healthcare industry, so the start of the project had a large learning curve. I learned a great deal about health insurance, aging, and the digital habits of older folks. This was also my first strategy project and a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of user research, UX design, and customer experience strategy. I had to synthesize large sets of data about members' diverse backgrounds, complicated health histories, and varying digital preferences into actionable insights. In addition to data, I focused on the human side of healthcare. I truly had to understand each participant to create a slide that differentiated them from the others and highlighted their personality, attitudes, and needs.
My colleagues approached participatory design and data synthesis differently than me, so I was able to contribute new ways of thinking to a more senior team. Overall, it was rewarding to unpack some of the complexities of healthcare and contribute to improving the system for a vulnerable population.
