Objectives:
An organization was piloting a new program designed to give patients a better experience after major surgery. It needed to understand patients’ experiences of the program in order to know what parts of the program were working well and where they needed to improve.
Methodology:
- We conducted telephone in-depth interviews with 16 members who had used the program. In order to track their experiences over time, we interviewed each member at different points in the surgical journey, beginning a week prior to surgery, and then again at one, three, and six weeks post-surgery.
- We spoke with both patients and caregivers of surgical patients, in order to capture a more complete picture of how these different constituencies were using the program and what their experiences were like.
- Initial interviews focused on assessing members’ overall awareness of and expectations for the program, while subsequent interviews focused on identifying the specific interactions they’d had with the program, satisfaction with those interactions, and unmet needs.
- For all interviews, we delved into program users’ emotional experience of the surgical journey and program, as well as the practical pain points of surgical recuperation.
Results:
- We identified patient and caregiver segments who had very different experiences with the program based on their individual levels of need, in-home support, and interactions with the program.
- We created a map of the surgical journey from pre-surgical preparations through six-weeks post-surgery, detailing users’ emotional landscape, the role of the program, and key cautions and pain points experienced at each stage.
- Ultimately, we were able to provide the organization with specific, actionable recommendations for how the program could change and enhance systems, from initial introduction of the program through resolution, to address unmet needs and solve for both emotional and practical pain points emerging during the surgical journey.
