Abstract
This portfolio contains both a technical report addressing hospital overcrowding and an STS paper examining the responsibilities of a user on social media. The technical report is designed to be generalizable to many hospitals and looks at potential inefficiencies in post operative patient flow and proposes potential solutions. UVA Health University Medical Center was the actual hospital the report worked with and the ability to work directly with hospital staff close by allowed for in person observations which add to the project beyond what could be done for a generic study. The STS paper aims to look at false information being posted to social media and what should be done to prevent it from the perspective of individual, rather than governments or corporations. The two parts of the portfolio both involve the responsibility that needs to be taken to keep a system moving and working smoothly, but they come at it from opposite angles. The technical report is from the perspective of the hospital itself, while the STS paper takes a user perspective. The topics of the project are disparate, but the technical report topic is largely dictated by which projects were available to work on at the time. The STS paper, in contrast, was selected freely and was inspired by recent political events and a general trend of noticing what language people use on social media when talking about topics.
The goal in healthcare is to deliver the right care, to the right patient, at the right time, in the right place, and by the right people to ensure optimal patient outcomes. Inefficiencies or delays in patient flow can undermine this goal, leading to increased lengths of stay, reduced patient satisfaction, and unnecessary strain on the hospital. Post-surgical observation represents a critical phase in which patients are monitored closely for complications while needing to be efficiently transitioned towards discharge. Post-surgical observation was identified by the hospital as an area of interest. The technical report is aimed at analyzing patient flow and operational processes associated with post-surgical observation care, with an emphasis on intake, bed placement, and discharge workflows. The objective was to identify systemic factors that hold back efficient use of post-surgical observation areas and address them using a mixed-method approach. Review of electronic health record data, qualitative interviews, and direct observations of staff involved in perioperative care, bed placement, and unit management were conducted to capture contextual factors, identify pain points, and develop potential solutions. Potential solutions are identified in the report, and it also includes some preliminary analysis of those solutions using a survey. Results include identifying key operational bottlenecks, decision constraints, and communication breakdowns, as well as developing targeted recommendations to improve patient classification and placement, data quality and availability, and communication of placement options.
The STS paper looks first at some of the problems in dealing with social media misinformation, both in general and specifically in trying to have governments or platforms solve the issue on their own. It proposes that this is a Wicked Problem and explains what that framework is, along with pros and cons to show why it is appropriate for this problem. Then responsibilities are examined and several are identified, explained, and analyzed. The three responsibilities identified are related to fact checking, use of language, and education around social media and these responsibilities. The paper discusses how these things should help solve the problem, along with some barriers and potential solutions to those barrier, using Wicked Problem framing to draw from many fields and solutions areas. It ends with opportunities for future work to flesh out these ideas, and with the idea of looking into things the social media companies and governments can do to support users taking the proposed responsibilities, rather than simply trying to be the arbiters of truth.
Through working on these projects, I learned and practiced a variety of skills in research, data collection, the systems method, and other things. The technical project in particular exposed me to considerations and methods that I normally wouldn’t have cause to interact with. The fact that the projects were undertaken at the same time emphasized time management and being able to prioritize what needs to be done when and how much, which is a valuable thing to know in every line of work or study. The technical paper was a group project, and this increased the coordination requirements, which also included needing to work with busy hospital staff and in a system that we were not familiar with. I also got some experience with technical academic writing for a conference, which has a lot of idiosyncrasies not normally encountered in other kinds of writing. The specific rules may never be relevant for me again, but being able to tailor writing for specific forums in this manner is still a useful skill with broader applications. I also was able to experience situations where our team encountered unexpected issues and delays which likely wouldn’t happen in a short, highly controlled project for a class. Having now seen these issues and the results, I will be better prepared to deal with them in the future.
