Background

This is a research project I did with my full-time coworker Reenu during my internship at DentaQuest, a Boston-based dental & vision insurance company. Transitioning from the traditional health insurance model, their Impact Integration Group had a mission of bringing oral healthcare to all, and it wanted to understand the current preventive care practice at its Oral Health Center (OHC) and expand its good efforts in other dental clinics.

Approach

We took a human-centric approach and conducted ethnographic research in the OHC to understand the patient journey of oral health care. We illustrated how, when and where patients receive preventive care, as well as the barriers and opportunities in the current practice.

We observed and interviewed multiple groups of stakeholders including: patients, dentists, hygienists, dental assistants, front desk staff, billing department and the practice director. We also observed different types of visits for both adults and kids including: new patient appointments, re-care appointments and restorative appointments

Organization
DentaQuest

Duration
3 months, May - Aug 2018

Additional team member
Reenu John

Prior to this project, all preventive care studies at the OHC were only focused on dental treatments.

We started with the patient’s perspective and mapped the step-by-step patient journey. By doing that, we were able to identify when and where patients get preventive care in the larger life context, and communicate the good efforts to the innovation group.

We also identified barriers to oral health disease prevention from inside of the clinic to the whole experience cycle. Note that patients spend most of the time taking care of themselves outside of the clinic. This informs that system change needs to happen in order to solve these complex problems.

Service blueprint: the current OHC model

We made a service blueprint to help the group see oral health care as a customer-centric service. From the service blueprint, we could easily see where inefficiencies and ineffectiveness happen in the front-stage and back-stage systems.

This deliverable is not strictly a service blueprint as it does not show the interaction details in the map, but it has served as a foundation and starting point for the organization to innovate their service model.

Our research approach

The Challenge

When we conducted this research, the mentality of research in that context was “dental treatment evaluation“. The ethnographic research practice was still very new to the clinic. Though the DentaQuest corporation wanted to learn about their practice, the challenge was gaining buy-in’s from the clinic’s end, and keeping the process as transparent as possible.

Observation

Before we have gained the trust of the ethnographic research from the clinic, we quietly observed things going on at the clinic: how people talked, what objects were used and what processes they went through.

Contextual inquiry + photography

With some trust being built, we were able to do contextual inquiry with care providers at the clinic, understanding the processes and tasks they worked with. This part was mainly done by my co-worker, Reenu John. The learnings had contributed a lot to the service blueprint that we laid out.

Intercept

With enough rapport being built with the clinic, we were able to talk to people at the waiting room. Because the people weren’t carefully selected, and we could not do in-depth interviews, we only used a basic protocol and did 5-minute intercepts with them while they were waiting.

Co-creation

Though it’s not strictly a session for co-creation, in the process of laying out the service blueprint, we had small sessions with dentists and clinic management to make sure the information we laid out was rigorous and accurate.

Personal Reflection

1. Working in a minimal design strategy team in a corporation requires strongly agile approaches. Without a dedicated project space, we strategized and found empty spaces in the open office for synthesis efforts, sharing our in-progress works to everyone. In addition, using simple language always helps.

2. Rapport building with stakeholders we work with is crucial, especially in less design mature places. In this case, we made efforts building good relationship with the OHC staff and care providers and earned their trust with our research approach.

3. Choose the right and best available methods. We chose to only do intercepts with patients in the waiting room instead of in-depth interviews that might potentially intimidate people (patients and care providers). It’s a slow but necessary process to earn trust.

4. Huge thanks to my co-worker Reenu John and my advisor Dan Williams. They gave me a lot of guidance through out my time with DentaQuest.