Supporting the Stillbirth Journey
How can we identify the core needs of people who have experienced a stillbirth, to improve the in-hospital journey?
Approximately 3000 families experience a stillbirth annually in Canada. Nearly all take place in the hospital setting, where the experience of care can be uneven, confusing, and heartbreaking, from diagnosis to delivery, to discharge home. To help families navigate their hospital experience, BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre collaborated with the Health Design Lab to “shift [the] focus from helping people to fit our care delivery system, to one where we design our care delivery system to fit people.”
Engagement Approach
A 17-person core design team collaborated on all aspects of the project. The team included bereaved parents and partners, multidisciplinary clinicians, designers from the Health Design Lab, Indigenous health leaders, program staff and project managers. The goal of the team was to host two workshops (1 virtual, 1 in person) with 30 bereaved parent participants to learn more about the in-hospital experience of stillbirth. Content from the workshops was analyzed by the core design team and shared with key stakeholders.
Activities were designed with consideration for both in-person and virtual engagement with sensitivity towards the intense nature of the topic and how to approach the conversations from a trauma-informed perspective to support safe and meaningful sharing and insight gathering.
Knowledge Sharing
Published Article: Supporting the stillbirth journey at BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre – BC Medical Journal (Vol. 66, Nov 2024, Page 340-345)
Published Abstract: Supporting the stillbirth journey: a comparison of in-person and virtual co-design workshop approaches to gathering knowledge from bereaved parents about their hospital experience – Design4Health Conference 2024 (Vol. 6, Jun 2024, Page 394-400)
Presentation to hospital stakeholders at BC Women’s Hospital
Conference Poster: Supporting the still birth journey: using human-centered design to identify opportunities for in-hospital improvement – Connected in Care Conference 2023, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Network
Project Collaborators
Partner:
BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre
Funder:
Butterfly Run Vancouver
HDL Project Team:
Nadia Beyzaei
Otilia Spantulescu
Kamila Bashir
Eden Luna Goldet
Timeline:
Nov 2022 – May 2023
