The Process

3 months before the beginning of the semester, we worked with Soroka on mapping the challenges in the hospital, out of 60 challenges, we chose 2 and through them we taught the students how to conduct:

The semester was divided into 2 parts

1. Sprint | 2.5 weeks

The first challenge dealt with improving the experience while receiving a daily Infusion. It was an accelerated process that included desk research, observations, interviews, ideation, sketches, prototyping and presentation to Soroka staff.

The goal was for the students to get to know each other and the hospital, and for us to get to know their skills and expose them to the learning process that we will deepen in the 12 weeks that follow with the main project

2. Main project | 12 weeks

The second challenge dealt with improving the culinary experience in the Department of pediatrics.  This is a pain point all over the world and we had a real opportunity to have a wide impact.

In this case study i will focus on the second part. Let’s dive in 

1. Defining the main challenge

2. Defining the work plan

The presentation of the work plan was an anchor both for project management and for the students who felt more certain about the process. 

3. Gathering information

• Preliminary and Desk research

The learning process begins with an in-depth study in which students interview experts, read articles, research new trends in Israel and around the world that help establish initial insights towards the next step – the field research. 

• Field research | Learning  how to build questionnaires and conduct interviews

In the field research The students learn how to be empathic and act from the point of each stakeholder,  they learn how to really listen and ask the right questions, observe body language, facial expressions, movement in the space, and be sensitive to different dynamics and interactions between people, even in the elevator or the hallway.

Being in Soroka gives us the opportunity to conduct lots of interviews, observations and prototypes testing in the field.

4. Research analysis

At the end of each interview, the students did downloading by writing down the most significant things on a post-it note and learned how to analyze the information and translate it into insights.

• User journey

 

• Extracting insights

Those who know research and development processes, know how many moments of frustration there are, for example when there is endless information collected, the moment when you start extracting significant insights is a difficult phase,  certainly when you learn it for the first time.

The students did it and out of 12 key insights that came up in the research,we focused on 4 insights in 3 areas of opportunity in the customer journey and maintained 10 values that will improve the customer experience.

4 Significant insights

1. Control creates a better feeling.

The feeling of control comes from two main sources: knowledge and choice. the information about the set of meals, which are major events during the day, is not mediated in a way that provides clarity and control.

“Satisfaction increases when patients have the ability to be independent, choose and influence what they eat”. Determinants of foodservice satisfaction for patients in geriatrics ⁄ rehabilitation and residents in residential aged care.

“A physical menu in the room can be nice – advance preparation”
Mother of an 8-year-old patient.

Opportunities

Providing information at the beginning and in the right way, about meal times, what’s on the menu and where to eat.

 

2. The eating experience in the hospital is functional and lacks emotional rituals.

This prevents the meals from being a positive experience that breaks the patient’s routine and hence the improvement of the overall experience

“The three meals a day are the high points of the day, rituals that are looked forward to…” Ronit Vared, journalist and food researcher

 

“One of the factors that contribute to the patient’s overall eating experience is the appearance of the dish”. Australia-Establishing best practice in dining experiences in hospitals 2017

Opportunities

Create a positive ritual in order to change an emotional state – announce a status transition from one to another in order to create a clear and permanent skeleton that will help the child define eating time as an event that is different from the experience of illness.

3. The location of the eating is significant.

Eating is concentrated in the treatment bed, which detracts from the feeling of being sick, while patients were interested in other alternatives that allow them to ventilate, relieve boredom, interact and experience a positive event during the day, taking into account their health condition.

“It is better to eat outside of bed from a physical and social point of view”. 

Rotem Bichovski-Pesach, dietitia, nutrition and food supervisor in the kitchen

Opportunities

Create eating space in the corridors so that it doesn’t take up space and is easily accessible to children who can get out of bed.

4. Dinner is not attractive and is served at inappropriate times to the patients needs.

The dinner meal is not attractive in its appearance and does not allow flexibility during dinner hours if someone is hungry again later, In addition, there is a food desert in Soroka, from 17:30 pm, so children remain hungry or the parents have to travel far to bring food or cook and bring with them or ask someone else for help.

“The boy was hungry because of the steroids between meals, I went to buy him couscous at 23:00 pm at night.” Father of a nine-year-old patient

 

“I’m waiting for dad to bring me shawarma in the evening, because I’m hungry again, he brings one for him and one for me”.  14-year-old female patient

Opportunities

• Providing an attractive dinner in terms of visibility and the components of the dish.
• Providing additional meal in the late evening in a free and accessible manner to the patients and which will not be a burden on the medical staff.

 

5. Personas 

Along with the insights, we characterized 4 key personas in order to understand our target audience more accurately and to make sure that our solutions will be suitable for different types and experiences.

 

6. Ideation workshop 

After the students learned how to process information, extract insights, create a customer journey and personas, we continued to an ideation workshop (2 rounds), where we worked in multidisciplinary teams with Soroka, and then selected the concepts for further development.

As a disinterested external source, we could reflect pain points, technical and emotional gaps in the system to Soroka in an objective way.

For example – in the ideation workshop we made two rounds with the Soroka teams, the first round with the children’s department team and the second round with the catering team. two senior officials proposed similar ideas for something that until then seemed to be a conflict of interest when in fact the thinking, from a creative and empathetic place allowed to redefine the solution.

7. Choosing & Developing Concepts

Together with the management of Soroka Hospital, we chose the solutions that the students will develop, taking into account the importance, development time and budget. the students were divided into groups so that each student worked on the development of two products / services.

Since we were present at the hospital, the development of the prototypes and their testing in the field were done in rapid iterations, until the desired result.

The chosen concept | In accordance with different sectors of the population:

1. Providing information: Physical absorption kit and an explanatory video.
2. Positive ritual: Transform the metal food cart into a smiling figure with a speaker that plays selected songs composed by the children and new uniforms for the team, that symbolize the transition to lunch.
3. Eating location: Folding tables against the walls of the corridors.
4. Improve the dinner: Adding a surprise box that includes dry ingredients and inside a loaded magnetic card with which you can purchase at any time 2 spreads or delicacies that are in a branded cooling machine located in a central place in the department.

 

8. The Results 

In addition to the final presentation, we delivered the following research results to the hospital:

• Presentations from the entire process
• Insights and recommendations
• Customer journey
• Personas
• Development ideas
• Working prototypes
• Sketch files for future development

9. Assimilation | The satisfaction index increased by 48%

After 6 months, Soroka Hospital has implemented most of the services and products that we developed, with their suppliers, and we were amazed to learn from the latest surveys that the satisfaction index increased by 48%!

Through Service Design methodologies and Product Design skills, we help the hospital to improve the experience of children and their families, physically and mentally, at a challenging moment in life.

I am so thankful for the privilege I had to work with talented students who will surely go into the industry with high skills and positively influence people’s quality of life.

 

You are invited to hear more about the research in person or listen to the D.TALK Podcast