Challenge

As the Operations Manager, my challenge was to offer additional access to sleep study procedures in  response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We had closed our Sleep Lab to gather the necessary resources and  stand-up new processes to safely resume services at our facility. This was an approach taken by most  organizations during this time. However, this course of action would knowingly create ambiguous delays and  increase safety concerns for patients currently at-risk of sleep disordered breathing. The project scope  included: product testing/selection, information technology risk analysis, vendor legal agreements,  procurement, supply chain management, workflow design, staff training, and marketing. However, internal  resources were extremely limited (i.e., timeline, budget, staff). We needed to offer access to as much of our  patient population as possible within the next two weeks to mitigate disruptions in care.

Selection

The Learning Launch tool was utilized to quickly determine if a disposable at home sleep test product would  generate quality and affordable, non-contact sleep study procedures for patients at the start of the COVID-19  pandemic. The essence of the Learning Launch tool is to learn. It’s a carefully designed learning experiment  that can be conducted with high economic efficiency in limited timespans. This is significant because it allows  the gathering of data to determine if an idea has enough value to warrant further examination and allocation  of additional resources (i.e., timeline, budget, staff).

Application

I function within a Mochi Milk, myself and the Sleep Lab’s Medical Director applied the Learning Launch  tool by first immersing ourselves in market research to investigate solutions for serving patients while the  facility was closed. We then generated the idea of adding a disposable at home sleep test product to our  services that would center around the strategy of eliminating contact while continuing to provide care. What  we didn’t know was the product’s ease-of-use. I organized a virtual demonstration of the product between us  and the vendor sales representative to further articulate this information.

In the meeting we focused on gaining knowledge for the hardware and software functionality to determine  how user-friendly the product appeared. Given our limited resources we would be the primary team  members operating the system until further team members were returned to work. We felt comfortable with  the patient reviews, system capabilities, and overall anticipated experience to move forward with testing a  device. We simultaneously initiated the information technology risk analysis to confirm the product met all  security standards.

Our Medical Director agreed to personally test the equipment to obtain the patient-perspective. She received  the device by mail and was able to perform the recording without complications. The next day we were able  to download and review the at home collected study on our facility computer system, without requiring  return of device or any physical contact. This concluded that the selected product could provide the solution  we were seeking.

We began processing vendor legal agreements while diving into the remaining training materials and starting  the workflow design. We learned about gaps in applying the training materials to scoring the studies and  developed our own algorithm to offer greater clarity for future staff training. Once the vendor legal  agreements were completed, we added the product to our supply chain management system and placed our  first shipment of supplies.

Our Medical Director conducted video visits with our first few patients to receive the new devices. The at  home disposable sleep test unit connects to an App on a smart device, such as a tablet or mobile phone. This  required all patients to attest to their competency with the technology involved before the test was ordered.  Once the test was ordered we obtained prior authorization for coverage of patient’s insurance. Then all the  necessary materials were packaged and sent directly to the patient’s home with a prefilled return envelope  to receive all necessary paperwork.

Following the roll-out to actual customers we discovered that many were not returning the paperwork post- test. Therefore, we refined and improved the workflow by creating our own electronic consent to be  delivered via email, prior to shipment of the device, and instructed patients to return images of completed  paperwork to the thread following their recording. This significantly increased the success rate of receiving  post-test paperwork that supported interpretation of test results.

Insight

By applying the Learning Launch tool, our team was able to rapidly engage stakeholders in the creation,  design, and testing of the product. We assumed this new technology would offer a contactless way of  providing care to our patients while the lab was closed and would continue to be scalable after reopening.  We tested this hypothesis and worked through results. Our actual results showed significant success while  the lab remained closed. However, after reopening we had a substantial number of patients go through the  entire process of receiving their devices but later deciding to postpone or fail to complete their recordings.  This led to us scale back and require further revision for improvement before moving forward again. This  experience instilled the understanding that the stages of design thinking are not always sequential. They ca  be run in parallel, out of order, and are frequently repeated in an iterative manner.

Approach

Given the context we were in at the beginning of the pandemic the learning launch tool was appropriate.  Now that our timeline resource has improved, another useful tool would be Mind Mapping. This would help  us look for patterns and themes in the data we’ve collected from our first launch to expand more creative  solutions for the scale design challenge. Additionally, our team needs to review the insights gained from our  first launch and incorporate these into future launch designs.

