Safer Care Victoria: Co-designing Victoria’s Hospital Emergency Department Futures

Co-designing Victoria’s Emergency Department experience

  • Investigators

  • Co-investigators

      • Dr Gretchen Coombs, Monash Art, Design and Architecture
      • Sara Daly, Monash Art, Design and Architecture
      • Hatoun Ibrahim, Research Assistant, Monash Art, Design and Architecture
      • Leander Kreltszheim, Monash Art, Design and Architecture

  • Partner organisation

    • Safer Care Victoria

  • Funded by

    • Safer Care Victoria

  • Undertaken within

“If the circumstances allow, we should be bringing the care to the patient, not the patient to the care.”

Workshop participant

In 2023, Safer Care Victoria Innovation Team (SCV) and MADA embarked on a partnership to research and innovate consumer experiences of Victoria’s hospital emergency departments (EDs). Hospital emergency departments are a critical ‘front door’ into the healthcare system. However, the increasing burden on emergency departments is becoming untenable, impacting consumer and provider experiences and the ability for ED teams to provide timely and quality care to members of the public.

MADA researchers worked collaboratively with the SCV Innovation Team to develop and facilitate a multi-phase, design-led project that consisted of:

  • Interviews with healthcare providers including GPs, ED nurses, paramedics, pharmacists and consumers/carers with a lived experience of ED services.
  • A structured co-design workshop that engaged 25 healthcare providers and consumers to identify enablers and barriers to consumers receiving safe, timely and equitable care, while also ideating on interventions and strategies to improve the journey of care for consumers and the workforce. The activities focused on consumer experiences of mental health, cognitive decline, disability, and culturally and linguistically diverse communities navigating Victoria’s EDs.

The stories and insights that emerged from the interviews and workshop underscored the complexity of the system in which ED services exist. Based on the findings, a series of action items were developed for SCV to guide improvement of the quality and care in EDs for consumers and providers.