Page 130 - Experience Based Co-design - a toolkit for Australia

Case Study 2 - Co-designing a patient communication board –
the paediatric experience
Organisation: Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick NSW Contact Person(s): Maria Brien and Laurel Mimmo
What were the goals and aims of our project?
Within three months, to co-design and develop a communication board with patients that facilitates patient and family engagement in clinical handover in an inpatient adolescent ward.
What did we do and what EBCD tools did we use?
We initially began our project as a quality improvement project. After sourcing several different communication boards used at other hospitals, we asked our Graphic Design team to mock up a basic template. We showed this to several of our patients who have regular admissions to our unit, and asked them what they think would be important to tell us. One patient told us to us emojis, as that’s how she communicates with her friends.
With this information, a prototype was developed. One of our patients, Tony*, was asked to trial the prototype during his stay:
The experience for Tony and his family using the prototype was shared with nursing staff during staff education sessions of 2-3 nurses. Our intention was for nursing staff to reflect on what was written on the board and what they thought about their own practice, and how the board could improve communication with our patients and families.
* Pseudonym