Leveraging Co-Design To Develop An Intervention To Improve Hospital-To-Home Transitions Near End Of Life (RP324)

Outcomes 1. Participants will have an in-depth understanding of the collaborative design process used to develop the intervention, and will have insight into the co-design workshop development process, co-design workshops, as well as the low-fidelity prototype stages.2. Participants will be familiar with various techniques that can be used to meaningfully engage patients and caregivers in research to both empower and educate. Key Message We ran co-design workshops to gather perspectives from those receiving or delivering palliative care and involved in the hospital-to-home transition. Data informed low-fidelity prototyping of potential interventions to improve this transition. Based on fidelity sessions, we selected and refined an intervention, a transition checklist and quick reference sheet. Importance Returning home from hospital for end-of-life care is a common transition but the process can be emotionally distressing and logistically challenging. To the best of our knowledge, no existing transition interventions have been developed in partnership with patients/caregivers nor used an interdisciplinary approach. Objective(s) Co-design an intervention to improve the hospital-to-home transition for patients receiving palliative care and their caregiver(s). Scientific Methods Utilized 1. Develop co-design workshop (CDW) materials to communicate findings from prior research and present journey maps of the hospital to home transition. 2. Conducted Co-design Workshops with patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers to explore the hospital-to-home transition and identify intervention design principles. 3. Tested and vetted low-fidelity prototypes developed in CDWs with healthcare providers. Synthesis of findings from steps 1 through 3 was informed by the Double Diamond Framework, a methodology developed by the Design Council. Results Ten patients and caregivers, and five health care providers participated in CDWs. Synthesizing CDW findings, the team developed four low-fidelity prototypes: checklist, quick reference sheet, workbook, and transition navigator role. We held four low-fidelity prototype sessions with 20 healthcare providers wherein participants provided feedback on what the interventions could look like (e.g., laminated document), what problems the interventions were trying to solve (e.g., lack of clarity regarding who to call when), and concerns (e.g., overlap with existing scopes of practice). Providers’ intervention preference was for simple, targeted, supporting documents (i.e., checklist/reference sheet). Conclusion(s) Our co-design process integrates design research, patient and caregiver collaboration, and implementation science. In the upcoming high-fidelity prototyping phase, we will refine the content of the checklist and determine who completes the checklist and when. Impact These methods can be leveraged for future intervention design in palliative care. Keywords Qualitative and mixed methods research\Leadership, program development and evaluation