ORGANISATION

OSI Ezkerraldea-Enkarterri-Cruces is a health-care organisation that is part of the Basque Health Service, Osakidetza, providing primary and hospital care, with highly specialised related health services.

CHALLENGE

Given that OSI Ezkerraldea-Enkarterri-Cruces is committed to innovation as a transforming element, which helps it to advance its goal of adding value to the patient, the challenge it proposed was to introduce the the point of view of its patients in designing the care pathway for type II diabetes.

IMPROBABLE COLLABORATOR

Carles Gispert. An artist and cultural activist who has developed collaborative projects in public spaces in social or artistic fields. Involved in innovative, educational and participatory processes through culture, he is co-founder of AATOMIC LAB and Lacasadelcactus in Mallorca.

PARTICIPANTS

Eighteen health-care individuals and six patients: two people from the Patients Association of Bizkaia, an “expert patient” (from Osakidetza’s “Active Patient” monitor programme), a newcomer patient, a female diabetic patient (to include a gender perspective) and a caregiver.

PROCESS

AATOMIC LAB focused on opening new channels of communication between the patients and OSI EEC’s interdisciplinary team to seek the active involvement of the patients participating in the project.
It was decided in the first working session to form a task force for the remaining sessions.

In the second session, Aatomic Lab suggested a role-play activity. Three groups were formed each comprising four health-care workers and two patients and an exchange of actual experiences based on three previously chosen ideas was proposed.

Each team made a movie (using their mobile phones) in which patients played the role of the health-care workers, who in turn played diabetics. The result was three short films that were edited and then analysed in the third session. The groups then proposed various ideas to incorporate into the design of the care pathway in order to improve it.

The process concluded with a participatory workshop on balanced cuisine presented by “Cocina de Guerrilla”.

RESULTS

Based on creativity and with the help of digital tools, mapping, registration systems, visualisation and exchange, a study will be experimentally launched that may positively benefit the design and coordination of care pathways based on patient needs.

The key ideas arising from the experience to continue working on are:

• Take care when communicating the diagnosis of the disease.
• Provide guidance consultation to control emotions.
• Promote physical and virtual spaces for meetings with other patients.
• Identify patients who are able to provide support to others, incorporating this service into the health system’s own structure.
• Allow the patients themselves to participate in designing the journey of the care pathway: “How would you like your journey through the health system to be?”
• Design an app to allow patients the opportunity to assess their journey through the care pathway, identifying good practices and critical points that would serve to suggest improvements as a result of their own experiences.

In addition, an immediate action was proposed to incorporate permanently one of the six members of the task force to design the care pathway for type II diabetes. The patients themselves appointed this person, who has since joined the task force.