At 3M, I worked as part of the Medical Solutions Division (MSD) team and the Food Safety Division (FSD) for the Healthcare Business Group. I worked as part of an amazing multi-disciplinary team, with UX designers, Industrial designers and design researchers. Working as a design researcher, I got to lead and support several design projects working on UX, hard goods and service design projects.
Medical Solutions Division
Design Researcher > Healthcare > 9 months
During my time with MSD I worked on several projects focused on advanced and digital wound care.
In field ethnographic research sessions in clinics across the US. Curated and synthesized the insights and data collected.
Planned and led multiple rounds of UX user testing sessions. Synthesized insights which guided the re-design of 3M medical software and products.
Led design research efforts for NPI/NTI initiative, translating user needs from medical specialists from across the USA and Europe.
In-field Research
While on the MSD team, I learned about 3M’s wound care portfolio, both physical and digital and the wound care system in which it lives. A huge focus of our research at the time was on learning more about the patient experience and journey while on negative pressure VAC wound therapy.
In order to learn more about the space we were able to visit patients and physicians in various home and clinic settings where we were able to better understand clinical workflow, supply storage and purchasing and other resources currently used.
Our first trip was to Arizona, where we were had the opportunity to shadow a podiatrist in her wound care clinic, tour a skilled nursing facility, meet with a home health agency and learn from skilled specialized nurses and physicians in emergency room settings. We observed patient and physician relationships, interactions and treatment procedures. We learnt a lot about how the clinic managed their supplies inventory and how the staff went about their daily workflow.
In addition to clinic visits, we were able to learn about 3M’s (formerly KCI) VAC service center where VAC devices were dispatched and serviced for quality assurance. This gave us a better understanding on how the devices were handled and shipped which helped inform our design process for the VAC devices, carry cases and packaging.
Our 3M clinical specialist shared her experience of teaching and training health care workers for negative pressure therapy and how to use 3M V.A.C.s and dressings effectively. We were able to get some hands on training to understand dressing application and VAC usage.
Some of our key takeaways from this trip included:
Provider relationships with patients play a huge role. Helps with communication and trust which is a challenge for several people.
Wound assessments are not a cognitive step, going through a checklist. HCPs look at the wound and then complete assessment documentation.
Availability and mode of transportation affects the ability of the patient to arrive for their scheduled clinic visits.
Covid-19 severely impacted the wound care clinic’s budget, availability of staff and was unable to stay open due to administrative decisions. This resulted in a drop in patient program adherence.
In the case of Home Health, hiring RNs with experience because they need to have autonomy, not new nurses. Wound care is experience very important for this group.
Patient Engagement Research
Overview: The MyWoundHealing (MWH) mobile app and iOn Progress Remote Therapy Monitoring are key parts of MSD’s DWC (Digital Wound Care) product ecosystem, focused on tracking and monitoring wounds during patients’ VAC experience . Data shoes that patients who use the app experience statistically significant improvements in their healing outcomes compared to those who do not. However, only approximately 2% of VAC patients download the app. In addition, we know the application is only one of numerous engagements 3M has with the patient.
This project aims to understand patient needs before, throughout and beyond their VAC journey, identify the value that 3M is providing today and iterate new products and services to create a holistic patient support program.
How might we leverage digital tools to drive patient and caregiver engagement to improve clinical outcomes and optimize clinical workflows?
Methodology: We approached the research synthesis in multiple phases to capture the nuances and ethnographic info behind each person, the regional/trip findings, data layer, and overall study.
Micro - Ethnographic
Each patient brought a unique experience, perspective, and life context to their interview. We created ethnographic snapshots of each participant’s life.
Goal: capture the individual
Macro - Systematic
Next, we looked for commonalities and themes across interviews. Notes were coded and grouped based on similarities
Goal: understand the share experience
Emerging Opportunities
Finally we layered key themes and findings onto a patient journey, identifying emerging needs, concept opportunities, and impact of each theme.
Goal: identify opportunities in context
Cross-region, wound type analysis
After each trip, we intended to repeat the process to see themes across patients, wound types, and regions.
Goal: understand impact and reach
Phase 1 : Micro - Ethnographic
Eight patients (aged 37-82) were recruited through their healthcare provider for 90-minute in home interviews. All patients had undergone or were currently prescribed negative pressure wound therapy. Post the first research trip we started synthesizing the information collected by mapping patient ethnographies. We represented the data collected in the form of patient cards or snapshots for each patient that we interviewed, as seen below.
Phase 2 : Macro - Systematic
After we prepared our ethnographic cards, we identified emerging themes and trends amongst the patient data collected.
Phase 3 : Emerging Opportunities
We created three patient journeys based on the experiences of the participants. Journeys were broken down based on the patients’ prior experience with wound care as this was a driver in seeking care.
Once we had the opportunity areas outlined in the journeys, we developed preliminary concepts that were tested with participants in a series of interviews at a WOCN (Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurses Society) conference.
Here’s a sample of one of the concept cards we developed as stimuli for the concept testing.
Phase 4 : Cross-region, wound type analysis
So far, we have only completed one trip of this research study. Moving forward, we intend to repeat the process to see themes across patients, wound types, and regions after each trip.