Category: Projects Spring 2017

Ethnography Comments

Posted on by Wendy

Great job with the diversity of immersions and interviews team!  There are so many interesting takeaways from your research thus far.  A few areas that stood out to me:

  • 42,500 no shows/year!!!  How much does this cost?  It seems like you could make a case that it would be less expensive to take doctor to the patient?  Or have their own “St. Joe Uber fleet” that picks people up?  Let’s challenge the orthodoxies!
  • If Medicaid is always late with getting patients to appointments, or taxis, or whomever, what incentives would make patients arrive early?  Say an hour before the appointment?
  • Kids seem like a reoccurring challenge.  Lugging them along or finding child care.
  • There appears to be a perception that buses are not safe or clean.  Is this true?  What can be done about this?
  • Uber is expensive and prohibitive to the many in this population without smart phones or credit cards.

Excellent work team!

Gallery Day Reflection

Posted on by Helen

Our team, the Hospital Helpers, updated Michelle Peters through a visual presentation of the information we gathered and analyzed thus far.

Main Takeaways

  • Allowed a chance for team members for update each other on the research and analysis they gathered in a cohesive manner
  • Michelle’s presence allowed for immediate comments and feedback
    • Suggested we speak with ER workers and patients
  • The process of creating our visual presentation was just as important as the finished product itself – pushed team to analyze our individual data and relate everything back to the core question
  • Unfortunately, we were short on time
  • After Gallery Day, our team members and I were able to begin pitching different realistic solutions to the problem at hand
    • Relations with Uber
    • Legal issues surrounding possible shuttles
    • Medicaid

Ethnography Summaries

Posted on by Wendy

I am awe struck at your team’s ability to see these disadvantaged individuals and to give them a voice.   I am very proud of the way you are approaching this daunting problem.  The quotes captured were very raw, personal, and humanizing.  The fact that Ed cannot even recognize a bad day anymore.  That Billy is so proud of starting school soon.  Or others that seem to not recognize the situation they are in.  It often seems that many don’t really “see”the homeless anymore.  Would it be better if we did?  Is there an area we should explore?

I would like to understand the pride factor more.  How did Billy get to this point?  Did he do it alone?  What motivated him?  I would like to understand the mentality more around “claiming a cot”.  How many go without a cot?  What is this process like?  How much time in the day is spent strategizing or lamenting this?  And your insight around the time in-between shelters and meals, coupled with a fully system of solutions, is spot on.

I look forward to reading the rest of the team’s ethnography summaries.  Keep up the great work!

Iowa Benchmark

Posted on by Wendy

Great job benchmarking with Iowa.  Is the $5 fee per trip to the club to cover the costs of transportation and food?  And are membership fees separate?  Please benchmark other clubs, even those that are not Boys and Girls Clubs.

Gallery Day Reflection

Posted on by Wen Cong

Our Gallery day with Debra went very well; she came in with one of her associates, Bayu, and we went through the ethnographic research we have conducted so far. We ended up finishing 3 expert interviews, 4 interactive interviews, an interactive card sort, and part of an immersion study. They were very impressed by the amount of information and insights we had collected despite relatively little contact with Imani Unidad (scheduling issues).

Debra especially seemed to really enjoy our interviews/card sort with landlords around South Bend as they reinforced some sentiments against ex-offenders that Imani Unidad has been suspecting for some time. Going further, the interviews provided very interesting insights as to why certain biases and discriminatory practices exist. Debra and Bayu took a lot of notes during this part of our presentation, and they wanted us to continue this line of interviewing with other realtors and land lords that don’t just serve students. In the next few weeks, we are planning on finishing our ethnographic research, including the immersion of calling different apartment complexes and landlords as an ex-convict looking for housing.

Gallery Day Reflection

Posted on by kmuya@nd.edu

The biggest takeaway I found was that the demographic of the homeless people we were studying was not as specific or concrete as we initially thought. There were various issues effecting the homeless people using the weather amnesty service and only certain services would be applicable to certain groups. Also, the biggest disconnect that Peter expressed to us was the cultural differences between the homeless at weather amnesty and the services provided .He found that many of the homeless population we were studying were from unique backgrounds of poverty and abuse, and the services that were targeted at them were trying to help assimilate and group them into a more middle class group. We also found that education was hugely important with finding employment.

Gallery Day Reflection

Posted on by Garrett

The Gallery Day event was an excellent opportunity for our team to touch base with the staff of the Boys & Girls Club, as well as to show off the research we’ve conducted and brainstorm a few new ideas.  We know that we still need some information from transportation companies in South Bend in addition to the research we’ve already conducted; we have already sent out requests for that information to most of the relevant individuals and will reach out to the others we identified on Gallery Day as possible sources of good information as soon as we can.  We plan to continue to volunteer at the Boys & Girls Club to further cement our understanding of the issues causing the attendance problem, and to connect with the students on a deeper level.

Gallery Day Reflection

Posted on by Graciela Hasbun

During Gallery Day, the team had the opportunity to present our findings to Michelle Peters, the Community Benefit Ministry Officer and Director Community Health and Well-being for Saint Joseph Health System. We walked her through our fast facts, journey map, user needs and insights map,  immersions and ethnography. We discussed some of the trends and patterns we found in our research as well as the direction we hoped to go in. We were able to share some of these with Michelle and she gave valuable feedback and advice.

Main Takeaways

  • One of the main issues is finding funding for this project .
  • Michelle believes that the solution will include a partnership with another organization or company
  • There needs to be much more marketing and awareness of the resources available to help with transportation.
  • The hospital makes maybe $8 per appointment when the patient is a medicaid patient.
  • There are legal issues with using volunteers to help with transportation.
  • Michelle suggested we talk with an Emergency Room case worker for more insights into the patients needs.
  • There needs to be an efficient and organized system for the all of SJHS.

It was really helpful to see all of our research and data displayed all together. It really helped us visualize the system as a whole and all of the stakeholders and participants and the interactions that they have on a daily basis.