Ethnographic Research — Expert Intervew

Posted on by Sophia

Ethnographic Research — Expert Interview

Conducted on March 3rd at the Saint Joseph PACE center by Sophie Brown and Therese McCarry

Kathleen Murphy

  • Female, 60-70 years old
  • Director of Marketing at PACE Saint Joseph Center
  • Background experience in healthcare — worked at Baxter, American Hospital Supply, and Bayer.

Our interview with Kathleen was extremely insightful. As the marketing director of the Saint Joseph PACE center, Kathleen oversees what she calls “the business side” of the organization. While she is still involved with patient care and seems to have strong relationships with many of the patients at the center, she describes herself as “all about the numbers” and focuses on fundraising for and publicizing the Saint Joseph PACE center. During our conversation, she explained the basic business model of PACE, walked us through the process of becoming eligible for a service like PACE, and explained her daily activities.

What drives Kathleen?

  • Kathleen explained that, in order to qualify for PACE, participants must be 55 or older, live in the Saint Joseph PACE area, and be considered eligible for nursing home care. This means that the participant must require assistance with at least three activities in daily living, meal preparation, medication and bathing. She told us that the typical PACE participant is on Medicare or Medicaid, and is often isolated or living in an impoverished environment.
  • Even though Saint Joseph PACE is only 10 months old, Kathleen has been working tirelessly to build up a strong patient base, so the center can help as many senior citizens as possible. She is driven by the large amount of underserved seniors in the area, and her desire to improve their lives as much as possible while still keeping them in their homes.
  • She is driven to show how much PACE is worth to the community by lowering costs for Saint Joseph’s hospital. By focusing on preventative and proactive care for PACE’s patients, Kathleen is striving to prove that PACE can help cut down on unnecessary or preventable hospitalizations in Saint Joseph’s most vulnerable elderly population.

What is Kathleen’s biggest point of pain?

  • Kathleen noted that, while the Saint Joseph PACE center is legally allowed to have 250 participants, the center is nowhere large or staffed enough to accommodate all of these people.
  • She is disturbed by the state of many senior citizens in the community, stating that many are lonely, isolated, and not living in the best conditions

Top 3 Learnings:

  • Preventative care is crucial for the elderly population. If smaller health issues can be dealt with early-on, larger health issues can be avoided or prevented.
  • The ideal health-tracking product for senior citizens would be an all-in-one dashboard with areas for personalization. She stressed the importance of uploading pictures or comments to add a personal touch.
  • Since senior citizens often cannot hear well, using an Alexa-type system might not be the best way to integrate IoT technology into their healthcare.

Key Insight: Since preventative care is so important for senior citizens, an IoT product that tracks vital stats every day could potentially be extremely useful in monitoring and detecting conditions in older people. This product must be simple, streamlined, able to be personalized, and accommodating of seniors’ unique needs.

Activities

  • Oversees marketing for Saint Joseph PACE
  • Spreads the word about what PACE is doing
  • Interacts with patients daily
  • Has conversations with patients during their lunch and leisure activities
  • Manages day-to-day business operations
  • Balances costs of care for patients outside of PACE (ex: dentures, home improvements, additional meals)

Kathleen talking with patients at lunch

Environment

  • Saint Joseph PACE
  • Clean, cheery, well-lit, enjoyable
  • Doctor’s offices with standard medical equipment
  • Physical therapy room with bikes and exercise equipment
  • Spacious lunch room with tables and chairs
  • Activity room with TV, Xbox Kinect, books, games, and puzzles
  • Nondenominational chapel
  • Conference room for business meetings

Interactions

  • Daily interactions with patients. Develops close relationships with them
  • Nurses and doctors
  • Physical Therapist
  • Chaplain
  • Business partners at Trinity and Saint Joseph’s hospital

Objects

  • Uses objects such as Xbox Kinect or puzzles to bond with patients
  • Briefcase and business materials for meetings
  • Reports with data about PACE’s status, impact, and costs

Users:

  • Elderly patients
  • Nurses/doctors/therapists
  • Professionals at Trinity and Saint Joseph’s
  • Family members who send their loved ones to PACE

Insightful Quotes

 

  • [Talking about Saint Joseph PACE’s maximum allowed number of participants, which is 250] “I sweat over that. You don’t want to ever overtax your team. We need to balance and ask ourselves, who can we really help? That’s the hardest thing.
  • “They literally fall in love with us. They say, ‘It’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.’ We have a man who wears a suit here every day because going to PACE is so special to him.”
  • “Everyone at PACE has been through the dementia simulation. Everyone needs to understand what the patients are going through.”
  • “Ideally, I would love an all-in-one dashboard to show vital stats, with a few quick buttons where you could put comments and pictures.”