Arosa Elder Care - Design Sprint

This work is from a Design Sprints course, where we were partnered with an external client. Our client for this project was Arosa Elder Home Care, who provided the teams with a brief focused on fostering mutual trust and support between caregivers and clients. The challenge was to develop a solution that would make both parties feel chosen for each other. The sprint timeline spanned five weeks, during which our team worked to create an innovative solution to meet the client's needs.

The aging population is growing, with projections indicating that 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 years or older by 2030. Almost 90% of adults over 65 years old would like to remain in their current homes as they age. This presents a challenge as older adults may require specialized care or assistance to maintain their independence and safety. As the population ages, there is a need for solutions that can support older adults in achieving their desire to age in place.

The proposed solution to address the challenge of making caregivers and patients feel chosen for each other is a three-pronged approach.

The first prong involves developing an improved matching questionnaire for patients and caregivers. This questionnaire will delve into more meaningful and vulnerable topics, such as stress and fear, to ensure better patient-caregiver matching.

The second prong involves implementing satisfaction management through regular check-ins. Patients' families will receive a Care Card to track essential details and status, and there will be a mutual feedback component to ensure reciprocal satisfaction from both caregivers and patients, giving agency to both parties.

The third prong focuses on implementing a culture of appreciation to improve caregiver satisfaction. This will be achieved by rewarding caregivers who consistently receive positive reviews or go the extra mile by accepting patients who may be a better personality match, even if they live further away.

Together, these three prongs will create a more holistic approach to supporting older adults in achieving their desire to age in place with dignity and comfort.

For this project, our process was especially important because we recognized that the elderly population is often left out of discussions and decision-making surrounding their care. As this is an especially vulnerable population, we wanted to ensure that we were designing with them, rather than for them. To achieve this, we embarked on a process of co-design, researching, and user testing with elderly individuals within our network.

Through co-design, we involved elderly individuals in the design process, asking for their feedback and incorporating their ideas into our solutions. We conducted extensive research to understand the needs and challenges of this population, including the use of interviews and online ethnography.

User testing was a crucial aspect of our process, allowing us to test and iterate our solutions based on feedback from elderly individuals. We solicited feedback on the matching questionnaire, satisfaction management, and culture of appreciation components of our proposed solution. Through this iterative process, we were able to ensure that our solutions met the needs and desires of the elderly population we were designing for.