healthcare company:
piloting a new service to better assist medicaid members
My Role
I worked as a service designer, design strategist and creative problem-solver within a health company.
The Challenge
Co-create and pilot a new service based on previously completed research.
Skills
Co-design | Facilitation | Service Design | Data
context
How do we test the feasibility, desirability, and viability of a new service?
*Due to confidentiality, this case study only discusses my approach and all identifying details have been removed.
This health company needed to augment their innovation team with additional help to develop the pilot of a new service for their Medicaid members. The previous team had completed extensive research with parents, families, and experts to create a big-picture strategy to better support their members and improve health outcomes.
I applied my service design and design strategy skills to help with the desirability and feasibility of this new service. I worked with a fellow design strategist to develop the pilot plan and execute on the pilot over the course of ~12 weeks.
co-design session
Designing with front-line staff
Image description: Graphic of the agenda - ice breaker, data analysis, role-play of approach, ideation, and refinement and service blueprint.
As designers, we needed to co-design the details and nuances of the new service with the front-line staff and experts working everyday to serve the users. The big picture concept had been created by the research team, and now the specifics and details needed to be developed. We planned a co-design session for a multi-department co-creation session over multiple days to creatively design each aspect of this program and develop consensus among the stakeholders who would be running the pilot.
At the conclusion of the co-design session, the group identified a few ideas to refine and pilot.
Image description: Group of four people discussing in front of two large sheets filled with post-its
Image description: Rows of colored post-its arranged in a service blueprint
the pilot test
Refining the service
After the co-design session, we needed to refine the details and organize logistics to turn the ideas into a MVP pilot test. Through this process we refined and filled in the gaps in the service plans created by the front-line staff. We continuously involved the project leaders in the decision making and development of the pilot program.
During this phase of the project, I had to answer:
How do we encourage an innovative mindset in the community partners and other departments we work with?
Our role was to change status quo, and pilot a new innovative service. We often had to advocate for design methods and benefits of a human-centered approach. We enlisted many departments and teams to work in new ways for this program and supported them to develop new methods. Healthcare can be a complicated industry, and we help others to navigate the complexities to quickly pilot these ideas.
How do we design a service that meets the needs of users and front-line staff?
Through constant co-design, iteration, and communication we developed a pilot service that solved user challenges and improved institutional efficiency.
What is the user experience and journey of a user?
I intentionally designed each step of the user experience--awareness, initial engagement, participation, and continued support. With a human-centered approach, we developed an ideal user experience as well as identified metrics of success.
Data and measures of success
To prove the success of the pilot, we needed both qualitative and quantitative metrics of success. I approached the quantitative data with my engineering and analytical mindset to ensure our data was effective in measuring success and could be analyzed post-pilot. The qualitative data needed to tell a story and identify areas of improvement for future pilots and scaling.
I refined and managed the data for the large-scale pilot test that engaged over 400 people.
outcomes
Better access to care
At the conclusion of my involvement with the project, we had piloted the ideas and helped many people get better access to healthcare. The project is currently under review for scaling beyond the pilot phase.