Patient Treatment Planning Process
SUMMARY
Our team explored multiple ways to collect, understand, organize, and analyze data during this course.
We worked with the University of Michigan's School of Dentistry to evaluate and make recommendations regarding the treatment planning process (TPP) in the student clinics
Information Gathering
BACKGROUND
The treatment planning process (TPP) is guided by a series of multi-colored paper forms that walk the student through the cognitive process of creating a treatment plan for a patient. Steps involve the student taking patient's medical history, assessing and diagnosing the patient, determining treatment options, and creating a final plan in conjunction with the patient. The paper forms indicate checkpoints with the faculty by requiring a signature from appropriate faculty member
USER INTERVIEWS AND OBSERVATIONS
Our team developed open-ended interview questions based on our research goals. The questions were designed to help us gain insight into thoughts, feelings, and experiences around the treatment planning process. We tried to gain a thorough understanding of the TPP process, from beginning to end and collected artifacts when possible.
In order to gain an understanding of the TPP from different perspectives, we wanted to interview faculty, dental students, and patients). Unfortunately, it was proving difficult to find a patient willing to be interviewed during our project's timeframe. Understanding how important patient-centered care was to the mission of the dental school and knowing how invaluable it would be for our research, I volunteered to go through the process myself and consented to having my teammates observe me throughout the process. We conducted a total of seven interviews (three faculty members, three dental students, and one patient).
Data Modeling
AFFINITY DIAGRAM
During our interpretation sessions, our team captured key findings and design ideas.
An affinity diagram was then created using the notes gathered from each interpretation session. Creating an diagram helped our team organize our observations, insights, and ideas into common themes. We invited our client and several stakeholders to walk our wall and give us feedback. In the end, our notes centered around four major themes: 1.) patient-centered care 2.) different approaches and expectations to teaching and learning
3.) theoretical model of the TPP and 4.) evaluation
constraints of going through the TPP.
CULTURAL AND SEQUENCE MODEL
In addition, each team member created different models to organize and analyze the data for patterns. Each model gave us different perspective in which we could analyze the data. I created cultural models based on all the interviews, as well as workflow and sequence models for the participants I interviewed. Additional models created by my teammates included workflow, sequence, artifact and physical models.
The cultural model gave us a tangible way of seeing thoughts, feelings and attitudes. I created a cultural model based on each interview as well as a consolidated one for all our interviews. The cultural model revealed the breakdowns in attitudes and expectations between faculty and students. Faculty felt students were not learning because they relied too heavily on faculty to create treatment plans, but acknowledged that the faculty was not consistent in how they enforced completion of the blue form. Students on the other hand, felt that getting input from the faculty and benefiting from their experience is a valuable part of the learning experience.
SWIMMING LANE MODEL
I created a swimming lane model based on the information outlined in the sequence and workflow models our team created. This allowed us to see the overall workflow of the treatment planning process against a timeline and identify any breakdowns in the process.
FISH BONE MODEL
Our analysis concluded by creating a fishbone diagram for overarching problems we found
throughout the project. A fishbone diagram is a cause and effect diagram that can be used to
identify factors contributing to specific issues. Our fishbone diagram focused on issues which led to an incomplete blue form (a incomplete blue form indicates proper steps or checkpoints had not been covered).
Based on the fishbone diagrams we came up with a list of solutions/recommendations that addressed the factors we found. One of my teammates met with the client to go over the feasibility and impact of each solution/recommendation. In addition to feasibility and impact, our client included difficulty as a concern. Based on our joint analysis with our client, we came up with short-term and long-term recommendations which we presented in a final presentation.
