Cancer wellness initiative

Aim

To advocate and innovate towards the provision of integrated, streamlined wellness support to all cancer patients receiving care at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.

Outcomes

By engaging with cancer patients directly and clearly documenting the knowledge translation process into actionable outcomes, the HEAL team were able to support the CWI in re-imagining the future of the initiative.

By creating a new brand this visual would help delineate the CWI as a unique service while celebrating its ties to the PA Research Foundation and hospital.

Background

The conversation around wellness as a crucial compliment to medical cancer treatment is ever-growing. Yet, in Queensland there is currently no public cancer centre specifically designed to holistically treat all aspects of the self – mind, body and spirit.

The project was founded on the notion that patients at the PAH were craving a unified source for reliable and supportive wellness information.

Given the over-abundance of cancer information online, conflicting advice and potential to lead people down online rabbit holes, the team wanted to create an authoritative, evidence-based, virtual home for PAH patients seeking wellness information, programs and services.

Discussion

Multiple workshops were run by the Cancer Wellness Initiative prior to the engagement with the Healthcare Improvement Unit and Queensland University of Technology's Healthcare Excellence AcceLerator (HEAL), which had begun to scaffold ideas for the initial service design, ensuring a truly collaborative design process throughout.

The collaboration between HEAL and the CWI involved four phases: Mapping, Visualising, Co-designing and Evaluating. First, the team imagined their outcomes and mapped out the future of the service. It was immediately clear that the team needed to re-connect with end-users – people with cancer and patients at the PAH – to better understand how their current and emerging needs could be met with an online offering.

The ongoing collaboration between HEAL designers and CWI had a profoundly positive impact on the direction of the project.

The overwhelming experience of many people with cancer indicated it was crucial that the nuanced delivery of information was carefully considered. By engaging with cancer patients directly and clearly documenting the knowledge translation process into actionable outcomes, the HEAL team were able to support the CWI in re-imagining the future of the initiative.

Lessons learnt

A key lesson from this collaboration was the importance of engaging with end-users throughout the entire design process, especially when the initial goals change or new limitations are imposed throughout the life of the project.

References

Nixon, J., Chan, R., McKinnell, E., Ward, E., Pinkham, E., Wishart, L., E., Miller & Brown, B. (2021). Rethinking the Meaning of “Wellness” for a Person with Cancer: A Qualitative Study to Explore What Elements Constitute “Wellness”. Asia‐Pacific Journal of Oncology Nursing. DOI: 10.4103/apjon.apjon-212

Pinkham, E. P., Teleni, L., Nixon, J. L., McKinnel, E., Brown, B., Joseph, R., ... & Chan, R. J. (2021). Conventional supportive cancer care services in Australia: A national service mapping study (The CIA study). Asia‐Pacific Journal of Clinical Oncology. doi/10.1111/ajco.13575