Co-Creation And Feedback Session With Mt Sinai Palliative Nurses
Thursday we had the great privilege to be invited to the Mt Sinai Palliative Care Unit for a feedback session with Nurses and other Caregivers from the Palliative Care Unit. Design thinking is at its core human-centered and receiving feedback was crucial for the NYC OpenIDEO members as we work to refine and iterate several of our ideas selected in the Refinement phase of the OpenIDEO End of Life Challenge.
The first thing you notice is just how caring and dedicated these people are. You would think in a place where loss is almost a daily occurrence that the atmosphere and individuals would be a little more somber or reserved. It is just the opposite. There was such an openness and joy they brought with them and shared with us we were all truly touched. For them, making sure people live, create & grow until it’s their time to leave this earth is their calling.
The Nurses took personal time out of their long busy day to give feedback on 4 different ideas. Below we share some of our main learnings.
The Emotional Clock prototype was the first to be presented.
We learned that Nurses may not be willing to be so vulnerable with a patient and that the sharing of emotions needs to be done with great care: “The process is unique and intuitive, not universal and it’s difficult to capture what is appropriate at a given time. Sometimes what you need silence and just a hand to hold.”
We learned that they had two major therapeutic “tools”, sharing emotions with each other and time on their own. One thing that stood out was that when patients die outside their shift, there is a hole due to lack of closure that lingers and currently nurses do not have tools to really address this loss.
Then Bettina presented a journey map for her Gardening Connection.
This idea provide patients in Home Hospice to participate in gardening activities through a partnership with an urban community garden. Connecting to nature and new people can enhance one’s experience in multiple ways as they approach end of life. It can also become a place of remembrance. Nurses were particularly excited about how the concept catered to many individuals of different physical abilities. Those who can’t travel to garden can still grow seedlings at home and skype in to watch their plantings.
Nurses explained how this program could help shape the culture by redefining what it means to be at the end of life and what it is to be a sick person:Being at the end of life does not mean you stop living. “You can continue to create and define your own identity until the day you pass.” It may even ‘Help people accept dying’ as a change of life, not just a winding down of it.”
Next to Present was Tender Memento
Tender Momento is a concept where hospitals partner with volunteer videographers, photographers and and local community partners to capture special moments of patients, family and care givers interacting in a social rather than a clinical setting. It would give caregivers a way to form individual memories of patients outside of their job description. Community partners provide items for a social setting such as Ice Cream Tuesdays. This would be filmed and memorialized for family and caregivers to share in remembrance.
We also learned that some parts of this idea are already in use. “Art therapy is used and memorialized for both families and caregivers. There are also structured remembrance ceremonies once a week, once a month and every 6 months for those who have passed. Families do return for remembrance ceremonies.
Our Co-creators loved the idea of seeing family members interacting with patients. Often times they are so busy taking the video or photos they are not a part of it.” They also thought it may be too emotional to see video of those who died and they would need a way to opt out. May be better suited to family and other caregivers.
Our last presentation was SuperPal App.
This app is designed to help Caregivers connect patients with similar interests that are either physically or mentally isolated from each other. The response we got was a moving story about two boys who were undergoing treatment that forced them into isolation. What they did was become pen pals with their nurses being the couriers.
The other aspect of this App would be a platform to allow community partnerships to form that nurses can tap into to better meet their patient’s needs or wishes. Such as a local book store providing materials to set up a reading group of the latest release of a favorite author.
We are ever so grateful to these wonderfully amazing people for taking time out of an incredibly long day to share their knowledge and insights with us. And they blew us away with their thoughtfulness and kindness by thanking us for thinking of them and recognizing how important their contributions are.
Make sure to check the updates on the different ideas and to give feedback to the teams. Thursday we will meet again to keep iterating and prototyping!
Tiger Buchman, Member of the NYC OpenIDEO Chapter
