In 2017/18 the State Government made a commitment to rebalance the health system by increasing and enhancing existing out-of-hospital and community-based hospital alternatives as a key strategy in supporting the sustainability of the system into the future.
My Home Hospital is exactly that – acute hospital services provided in your home.
Hospital in the home services are not new – but what is new is the scale of this project and also the way in which it was created. In early 2020, Wellbeing SA contracted democracyCo to design and deliver a large scale co-design program – to explore and work through detailed program design decisions.
The Approach
The co-design program was conducted in 3 parts:
- Lived experience engagement
- Citizen designed principles
- Large scale co-design
Lived Experience
The lived experience program aimed to understand what people’s experience of hospital was – both those who had experienced hospital services in the home and those who had attended a traditional hospital. A series of 30 interviews were conducted with individuals, and some small group workshops with priority care groups – mental health, disability, LGBTQIA+, aged care.
Citizen designed principles
Following the lived experience, a random sample of lived experience participants convened online for 2 sessions to create and finesse the project design principles. These principles were used to inform the co-design.
Co-design
A total of 160 came together over 3 days to co-design key aspects of the program. Of this group, 20 people were ‘everyday South Australians’ who volunteered their time to work with senior medical and clinical practitioners and also allied health staff and health care administrators. Over the three days, the group explored key design considerations (such as eligibility criteria, collaborative provision of services, managing deterioration) and provided detailed advice and recommendations to Wellbeing SA and the service provider, Calvary Medibank.
Outcomes
The program is now being rolled out at scale across South Australia – including in regional areas. The co-design has effectively informed the SA medical community about the program and allowed them an unprecedented opportunity to design the biggest change to health services ever seen in South Australia.
The co-design has also resulted in open and thriving lines of communications – ensuring the program can continue to evolve using co-design methodologies.
“I wish that everything I’ve ever worked on had this amount of people working and contributing to it”
