Ara Manawa
Area of focus: Employee Retention
’Enhancing the experience of student nurses on placement’
Service Design
New Zealand was facing an acute shortage of nursing staff. A couple of underlying factors contributed to this, including the global Covid-19 pandemic, the closure of the international borders, and the high staff vacancies across the health system. How may we keep the retention of employees?
The Challenge
The research looked into doing a deeper dive into understanding the challenges faced by student nurses and NETP graduates while at placement or during their initial years in the role. Identifying the challenges leads to finding opportunities to help turn things around and improve the current staffing state. The findings act as a starting point to work through the iceberg of problems that exist within the multilayered health system in Aotearoa.
Significance
We conducted design research to uncover the challenges faced by student nurses and generate recommendations for change.
The study involved a series of focus groups and semi-structured interviews, which were conducted online using the whiteboard tool Miro. Thematic analysis was then performed on the collected data, which was subsequently incorporated into a synthesized current state journey map.
Our Approach
This project holds a high confidentiality rate, and the study's specific outcomes are not to be shared with the public. Our work was focused on delivering a synthesised current state journey map along with key quotes from primary research data. This showcased the problems of Aotearoa’s nursing pipeline and how it’s currently affecting student nurses. This was achieved through the transcribing, theming, and synthesis of data from the focus groups and semi-structured interviews of 51 nursing students and new graduate nurses from the five metro Auckland nursing schools.
Outcome
Roles: Strategist, User Experience Designers, User Researchers
Duration: 20 Weeks
Partner Name: Ara Manawa
Tools Used: Canva, InDesign, Illustrator and Miro.