Foot care journey: visual guide a winning formula

Podiatrists in Community and Oral Health identified through their observations that people referred to the service were often confused about how and where they should access services; and once accessed, how they should flow through the service.

Part of the problem was that communication was done in a clinician-centric manner using terminology to describe the different service options that did not make sense to patients. Podiatrist Emma Jay, was able to see firsthand the communication issues that were causing confusion for patients and carers:

Our project required us to re-invent the way we communicate our service to our clients. Due to having multiple locations within the service, patients can get confused knowing where they need to be and when. We suspected that this was attributing to missed appointments and the likelihood of patients not following advice in caring for their feet.

To solve this problem, three podiatrists from the Community and Oral Health service worked with consumers to develop a Foot Care Journey, an infographic aimed at improving patient experiences. This guide leverages well understood visual metaphors and uses plain English to empower consumers with a clear understanding of their foot care journey.

This project took a person-centric approach to the design and development of this solution. The project team deliberately validated their observations and ideas with a consumer feedback group before generating a solution and developing a resource. The consumer group was made up of eight patients who were already receiving care within the foot health service.

This initiative demonstrates that inter-departmental collaboration with consumers of the service is efficient and produces good outcomes for the patients as they are directly involved in the design of solutions. Together with Metro North Communication, the team is now producing accompanying brochures and diagrams, to further improve the patient experience.

An incidental finding was that every participant became lost trying to find Caboolture Specialist Outpatient Department services where Podiatry is located. As a result, the Podiatrists will work on a strategy to email or text a link to a map to assist consumers to navigate this issue.