GOALS
Our client approached us with a dual objective for this project, with our goal to answer these two questions:
1) How might we create a meaningful “trophy” for patients to receive after successful shoulder arthroplasty surgeries?
2) How can this “trophy” serve as a marketing tool for surgeons and a mark of their consistent patient success?
DEMOGRAPHIC
The demographic for this project included patients who were between 50-80 years old and who had underwent total surgery replacement in either 1 or both shoulders.
Four surgeons from across the US were also interviewed as the initial Discovery phase.
DISCOVERY
During the first phase of this project, our team led a focus group with surgeons to generate qualitative insight around the unique challenges patients face during their surgery journey.
The surgeons provided information into the most stressful points of the patient journey from their initial visit to the months that follow their procedure. We also marked the level of surgeon engagement to see where more support could be provided to the patient.
Surgeons also brought up themes of trust, autonomy, and empowerment which we defined as the three building blocks for patient success.
IDEATION
Our team took theses themes and developed 6 concepts for a patient “trophy” that patients would receive at some point during their surgery journey.
Some concepts represented a trophy that “grew over time” with post-surgery compliance, whereas others were received at one specific part of the patient journey.
These concepts also ranged in the level of personalization to the individual patients interests or medical anatomy.
TESTING
In the second phase of this project, I led 1-on-1 virtual user interviews with 8 patients to develop a stronger sense of the user need and to test the 6 concepts that we were developing.
Our high level goal:
Determine what is most important to patients when it comes to improving their surgical experience (i.e., improving access to information, increasing the feeling of care, increasing the feeling of community)
Trophy specific goals:
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Understand what would be exciting to patients, but also practical or helpful in their lives
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Determine the strongest moment to introduce a patient trophy or whether it is something that builds over time throughout the patient journey
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Understand the importance of personalization, ownership, or share-ability in the trophy
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Determine what form the trophy should take (e.g., physical, digital, combination)
Patients echoed certain themes that the surgeons mentioned, including emotional highs and lows and the goals they had in getting their surgery.
NEXT STEPS
After testing, we determined that the surgeon's "personal touch" was the most important factor in inspiring hope and feelings of positivity during a patient's surgery or recovery journey.
We refined our care package concept to include other important items that reminded patients of their original surgery goals and helped them through the recovery process. These items included:
• A small gift related to a goal they had to return to a specific activity
• A specialized ice pack designed for shoulder pain
• A personalized note from their surgeon
Our team presented the refined solution*, findings from patient testing, and other opportunity areas with our client to help them determine their next steps.
*Due to the confidential aspect of this project the final solution can not be pictured