A “one stop shop” for patients requiring minor surgical procedures
Mater Plastic Surgery
team,
Day Surgery Unit
NCAD
A trip to the hospital can be a very stressful experience. At any given moment, a patient might be feeling anxious about their health condition, or uncomfortable in their hospital journey, not to mention feeling unwell.
Traditionally when patients have a minor surgical skin complaint, they have to travel to the hospital at least twice - once for an initial assessment at the outpatient clinic, then again for the actual procedure at a later date.
“See & Treat” combines the assessment and treatment of the minor surgical complaint into a single visit. This “one stop shop” for the patient provides faster access to treatment and reduces the number of trips to the hospital.
While the benefits are clear, patient buy-in plays a key role. Patients need to understand in advance that their procedure could take place on the same day. Otherwise, they may not be prepared or the patient may feel stressed or frightened by the experience.
Data showed that See & Treat could reduce wait time for minor procedures from an average of 134 days to 61 days.
There are nearly 17,000 adults waiting for an outpatient appointment with a plastic surgeon in Ireland. For every See & Treat appointment, another outpatient space is made available to a patient on the waiting list.
18% of people over 65 experience stress or anxiety about journeys to hospital (Age UK, Painful Journeys).
The design challenge here was to
help the patient to navigate the new “See and Treat” model, by providing reassurance, education and transparency.
Suite of tools shared with patients including information pack and interactive way-finding tools
“Our See and Treat model reduces the time that patients are waiting for their procedure by over half. The impact of this is lost if patients do not turn up for their procedure or if an inappropriate patient with more co-morbidities is selected for this pathway”
Consultant Plastic Surgeon Shirley Potter explained
The initial design research for this project was carried out as a summer project as part of the NCAD Service Design Masters programme.
Extensive customer journey mapping was carried out across the end to end patient journey and key touchpoints were identified.
A complete suite of patient information tools and interactive way-finding aids were developed, prototyped, tested and iterated with patients and other service users.
Initial testing with patients indicated that this service design would allow enhanced patient understanding of what to expect and would reduce anxiety and stress about the procedure. This in turn could potentially reduce cancellation rates, as well as reduce the number of patients who don’t attend their appointment.
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