Supporting caregivers
of long-term patients
Service Design | User research

T.Ospito is a socially involved project that aims to bring together two neighbouring communities - the local Niguarda population and the relatives, or caregivers, of long-term patients staying at the Niguarda Hospital - by creating a support network for the caregivers with the help of locally selected buddies, a.k.a. Amici di Quartiere.
Services
Concept generation; Service design; User research; Workshop ideation
University
Politecnico di Milano
Challenges
Having been tasked with developing a socially involved service in the Niguarda neighbourhood, home to the famous Niguarda Hospital - the main hospital in the Milan area - we worked together with the local community to develop a service that would benefit the neighbourhood inhabitants and hospital visitors both.
Caregivers are typically vulnerable individuals in need of a new daily routine that helps them cope with what is for them an unfamiliar, stressful and often lonely situation.
They more often than not have moved temporarily from one end of the country to the other, have little to no support network around them and are constantly worrying about their close ones well being and treatment.
The local community on the other hand is quite isolated from the context of the hospital, which they at times view as a nuisance rather than a source of potential revenues and active player in their local businesses, thus giving opportunity to potential discontent.



Approach
As we had been initially left completely free to work on whatever issue that might arise from the neighbourhood it self, we ended up spending a whole month trying to embed ourself with the local community. Aside from the typical networking, thus, we tried to achieve this goal by organising a number of more or less structured workshops together with the locals, so to try and involve them in the generation of possible services concepts.
It is through this full immersion in the neighbourhood that we realised the coexistence of these two separate communities in the neighbourhood which led us to develop the concept of a service that could become a bridge of connection of the two.
That's how the core idea for what then became T.Ospito came to be. Once the concept had been defined, we still kept the community engaged in the shaping of the service, especially on the developing of the buddy-system, by involving them on a series of rapid prototyping and testing sessions, characterised by an always increasing level of fidelity.
Similar activities were then done with representatives of the Niguarda Hospital and long-term patients' caregivers, although at a smaller scale, given the sensitive nature of the environment.


Results
In order to support the Amici di Quartiere in their work and the caregivers in approaching and interacting with the service, we have developed a series of touchpoints, both physical and digital. Through the T.Ospito website, both locals and caregivers can sign up on the service: it is through this then that locals' and caregivers' profiles are analysed and then matched accordingly. The website is also a platform on which to discover the latest activities organised by the local partner associations, that are free to join for the service users.
Through the welcome-kit, the Amici are facilitated in breaking the ice and introducing the neighbourhood and its perks to the caregivers on their first encounter, thanks to the presence of a detailed Niguarda Map and the T.Ospito card, though which service users will get discounts at partner local businesses.
Since its completion, T.Ospito has won two calls for fundings from Designscapes and is currently taking shape with the help of locals and volunteers.