Personalized prostate cancer support

HHF collaborated with ELLICSR to develop a Canada-wide service that connects prostate cancer patients and informal carers with peer navigators. These supportive relationships with someone who has lived through prostate cancer improved people’s experience of healthcare, their independence, and their quality of life.

Client

Movember Foundation
Prostate Cancer Canada

In Collaboration With

ELLICSR Health
Wellness Cancer & Survivorship Centre
BC Cancer Agency

Services

Contextual Interviews, Environmental Scans, UX/UI Design

Challenge

Prostate cancer impacts 1 in 9 men, making it the most common cancer for men in Canada. When caught early, it is a highly treatable disease, but the cancer experience can leave a lasting impact on a person’s life. Many patients and caregivers deal with stress during diagnosis, difficulty deciding on the best treatment for them, changes in their sexual health while recovering, and long-term anxiety related to a lingering fear of returning cancer.

Our client hypothesized that one-on-one supportive relationships between people who had already experienced prostate cancer (navigators) and newly diagnosed patients or their caregivers, could help people to better navigate the healthcare system, be more prepared for treatment, and reduce the lasting negative emotional effects of cancer on their lives. They came to us with a competency-based training program for navigators, and engaged our team to design a seamless end-to-end experience for all users.

Process

Discovery

We worked in close collaboration with patients, caregivers, healthcare practitioners, and researchers to ensure a truly co-creative process. Our team began by analyzing a series of in-depth ethnographic interviews that detailed the lived experience of patients, caregivers and urologic-oncologists. We then conducted audits of key online sources of prostate cancer information and thoroughly mapped the many pathways of prostate cancer experiences to identify a series of insights and opportunities.

The many insights gathered from ethnographic interviews helped us to identify opportunities.

What we discovered

Peer navigation couldn’t just be for patients, it also had to be available to caregivers who are deeply impacted by the experience of cancer.

The people who stood to benefit the most were those who couldn’t access a support group or those who didn’t feel comfortable discussing their difficulties in the support group environment.

The greatest opportunity was not in the recovery period, but earlier, when patients were deciding on a treatment. This is when patients were feeling the most anxiety and uncertainty.

Each patient had key attributes that they looked for in order to find a navigator that they felt was relatable and trustworthy.

Design
and Prototyping

We used design sprints to rapidly develop and test different concepts. To ensure that the service was seamless, our usability testing simulated the key moments from initial awareness to eventual exit from the program to perfect each touchpoint.

Apart from adjusting the user interface to ensure that it was easy to use, other key takeaways from our design sprints included:

The importance of recognizing how users of this broad age range perceive themselves and supporting that identity through a focus on adventurous nature imagery rather than stereotypical “photos of boomers.”
The need for a physician to recommend or prescribe the program to eligible patients in order to boost engagement and set clear expectations.
The importance of giving the patient or caregiver control over their ultimate match.

Initial sketches evolved to a series of prototypes, which were rapidly developed, tested, and refined through a series of design sprints. The final deliverable was service that would allow patients, caregivers, and prostate cancer survivors to connect with and support each other.

Outcomes

The Peer Navigation program was piloted at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto and the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver. Results from the pilot showed statistically significant improvement in prostate cancer-related quality of life, informational support, practical support, and patient activation.

The program will continue to scale to accommodate new types of cancer and to improve access to cancer survivorship care Canada-wide.

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