The Memory Project
Strengthening Institutional Memory in the Emergency Department at The Royal London Hospital
My Role -
Researcher, Strategist, Designer and Project Manager
Client -
Royal London Hospital (Barts Trust)
Brief
The Emergency Department is an environment which carries inherent risk due to high patient volumes, time pressure and limited patient information. It experiences rapid change and must learn to adapt.
Institutional memory is the collective experience and knowledge of a department which mitigates risk. It is often lost due to high staff turnover and expanding departments. Put simply, the department is struggling to learn from its mistakes.
Solution
The Memory Project is an initiative set up by Dr Samy Sadek at The Royal London Hospital which aims to collect the knowledge gained by experience within the Emergency Department and feed this back into the learning and working practices. Still in the research and prototyping stages, I am leading a team combining students from Queen Mary University of London and consultants from Royal London Hospital to develop a prototype to apply for funding from the board of trustees.
Key Skills - Complex Problem Solving and Flexibility
Research
This project required careful interviews to uncover insights into what the user thought they wanted and what the user actually needed.
I had a hunch that there were many useful structures already being used to collect wisdom, but that their outputs were not digestible, informative or easily accessible. Observations and interviews shed light on the structures already in place which capture knowledge within the department.
Dr Sadek shared prime use-cases of the project: cases which are rare but require lots of experience to diagnose. Acute Aortic Dissections were one of these use-cases (see 4-DIRECTT). I interviewed the chair of Aortic Dissection Awareness UK and Ireland to understand how they strengthen institutional memory within trusts, to improve the rate of diagnosis. Incorporating their case-based learning strategies, I redesigned the data structure of the project (as seen above).
Publication and Future Plans
This project has a vast scope.
The next phase requires a wide network of professionals to mentor, advise and oversee.
I wrote a paper on the project which was published by Design4Health 2024 conference run by Sheffield Hallam University to meet such a network. I was invited to give a 20 minute presentation on the paper which was well recieved.
If this project interests you, do get in touch as I am looking for developers, information architecture designers and service designers to get on board.