MICHR
As a student consultant for the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR), I provided findings and recommendations related to administration and recruitment challenges facing the Community Engagement team.
As a result of studio observation, stakeholder interviews, and solution analysis, I provided solutions to reduce administratively burdensome tasks, improve communication, share studio responsibilities, and reach potential participants more effectively.
September 2020 - December 2020
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tl;dr
Just want the highlights? Here's a quick overview:
Project type: Contextual Inquiry Project
Goal: This project aims to give the MICHR studio team recommendations to improve communication and simplify processes.
Skills & tools : User research, Interviews, Miro boards
My role: On Team of 3, I was the interviewer + researcher
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Overview
THE PROJECT
This project was a contextual inquiry project to evaluate the client's workflow process and new member intake.
PROJECT TYPE
User research
Contextual Inquiry
SKILLS/TOOLS
User Research, Conducting interviews, Identifying solutions and crafting recommendations, Miro boards
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Timeline
Initial client meeting
Conducting Interviews
Consolidated findings
Studio sit in
Analyzed Interviews
Final presentation
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The problem
Heavy administrative burden
Recruitment & marketing strategies needed improvement
Lack of diversity among participants
After the initial client meeting we identified that the main challenges that MICHR was facing revolved around addressing the administrative burden, improving recruitment & marketing strategies, and the lack of diversity among participants.
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The studios
One of the main roles of the Community Engagement (CE) group within MICHR is to conduct studios.
They are sessions for health researchers interested in getting feedback from patients or those working in a community setting on proposed or on-going research projects
Topics covered during studios include participant recruitment, considerations for underrepresented populations, study design, and how to share research findings with target populations.
We then attended a studio conducted by MICHR to get an understanding of what studios are and how they are run.
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The interviews
Interviews focused on two broad points of interest ~ administrative & recruiting
One Studio Participant
Six MICHR Employees
One Vanderbilt Staff Member
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Analysis + Synthesis
After conducting interviews, we consolidated them by creating affinity wall which started as an unorganized drop of all the content from the interviews we conducted.
From there, as a team, we grouped these points and quotes into topic groups (blue notes), and then grouped these into 18 larger categories (pink notes), in order to get a better idea of what sorts of issues needed to be addressed.
Finally, we grouped these into 4 main topic areas (green notes), with one Miscellaneous section, that helped us visualize how we needed to approach our solution plan
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Findings + Recommendations
General Findings
There is high regard for MICHR studios to facilitate research
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Strong positive feedback for how studio sessions were conducted
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Five main topic areas for all findings and recommendations: administration, recruitment, marketing, participant access, and partner expansion
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These could take studios to the next level & allow for successful expansion of studios in the future
We formulated solutions and evaluated our top six recommendations based on priority, feasibility, cost, impact/effectiveness, and time frame. We color coded this table from dark blue to a lighter blue.
The boxes in dark blue represent solutions that can be acted on immediately, can be easily implemented, have a low cost, are highly effective or can show results within a year.
The boxes in medium blue represent action items are recommended but not urgent, may not be as easy to implement, may come with some cost, are effective solutions or those where you can see results within 2-4 years
Finally the light blue boxes represent low priority solutions where action is not necessary, may be difficult to implement, may have a high cost, may not be very effective or are long term solutions where results are seen in in 5+ years.
Lessons Learned
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Gained experience conducting interviews in an online format
Learned how to frame interview questions so they aren't leading
How to adapt and overcome challenges in group dynamics
