Enhancing Incident Reporting Systems using Human Centered Design Principles

ThriveWorks is a human-centered incident reporting platform designed to enhance transparency and reliability in documenting work-related injuries within elder-care organizations, featuring a clean, aesthetically pleasing interface that promotes a shame-free environment for accurate and timely reporting.

Our goal was to minimize underreporting by enhancing the user experience, making the process of filling out and managing reports straightforward and less daunting.

Outcome 🎯

• Error Prevention: Implemented features to create, edit, and save reports, enhancing data accuracy and security.
• Enhanced Flexibility: Added functionality to reassign cases between administrators with custom transfer messages, facilitating smoother case management.
• Support Accessibility: Introduced a multilingual chatbot for FAQs and support, improving accessibility for non-English speakers.
• Cultural Sensitivity: Enabled a language-switching feature to accommodate non-native English speakers, ensuring accurate information submission.

Enhancing Reporting Practices in Nursing Homes

"How might we design an incident reporting system that encourages comprehensive reporting by eliminating the stigma associated with reporting errors, providing constructive feedback, and offering a user-friendly interface?"

To address the challenges associated with underreporting due to fear of embarrassment, ineffective feedback, and poor user interface design, we aim to:

• 🛡 Eliminate stigma associated with reporting incidents to encourage transparency.
• ⏱  Streamline the reporting process to reduce the time and effort needed for submissions.‍
• 💡 Enhance user interaction with the system to improve overall user experience.

Key Metrics to Measure Success:

• 📈 Increase in the total number of incident reports submitted.‍
• ⏳ Reduction in the time required to complete and submit reports.‍
• 👥 Improvement in user engagement and satisfaction metrics.

Our review of existing systems underscored the need for a platform that ensures easy access to information and supports a judgment-free reporting environment. Ensuring that all necessary details are readily available and encouraging transparency are key to effective incident reporting. 📊

Research highlighted major barriers in healthcare incident reporting: fear of judgment and the repercussion culture within the workplace. Healthcare workers often avoid reporting due to these fears and the demanding nature of their jobs, which is exacerbated by the laborious OSHA reporting process that deters timely submissions. 🏥

User Flows and System Functionality

In developing the incident reporting system, I created six user flows that defined the structure and functionality of critical components like the homepage dashboard, reports pages, profile page, and staff messages. These flows facilitate a variety of tasks that ensure efficiency and user-friendliness across the platform:

• Create and Submit Incident Reports: 📝 Enables both staff and administrators to report incidents swiftly.
• Repository Access: 📂 Users can view a repository of submitted and draft reports before they are escalated to case status.
• Case Management: 🗂 Administrators can view and manage case statuses, append necessary files, and add notes to cases.
• Reassignment Feature: 🔁 Allows for easy reassignment of cases between administrators, enhancing flexibility in case handling.
• Form Autofill: 📄 Automates the filling of OSHA 301 and Worker’s Compensation forms using information from reports.
• Activity Log: 🕒 Users can track the timeline of events and view an activity log for each case, ensuring transparency and traceability.