T.Ospito - codesigning a service with community ensuring patients' wellbeing in Niguarda hospital.
- Shivam Shrivastava
- Feb 2, 2019
- 3 min read
T. Ospito is a non-profit, socially innovative project that aims to connect two realities of the same neighborhood: the local community of Niguarda and the long-term family members of the patients (called caregivers) who come from outside Milan.
By giving the former a leading role in the neighborhood and by granting a series of agreements and discounts to new guests, local associations and businesses find a way to dialogue and collaborate for a common goal: the creation of a hospitable neighborhood.
Project timeline
Three months from August 2018 to December 2018 during the Final Synthesis Studio
Master in Product, Service and System Design, A. Y. 2017/2018 at Scuola del Design - Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
Professors: Liat Rogel, Marc Garcia Fortuny, Sergio Galasso, Serena Liagi, Paolo Landoni, Elisa Saturno
Team
Nadejda Cervinscaia
Runyi Chang
Alessandra Cislaghi
Yuenan Hou
Martina Monelli
Nicolò Orlando
Sruthy Padannappurath
Angela Puppini
Ginevra Romagnoli
Shivam Shrivastava
My Role
Team-lead for business design and development
Project Milestone
https://tospito.wixsite.com/tospito
https://federicodeluca.wixsite.com/fattoin
Project Description
T. Ospito is a non-profit, socially innovative project that aims to connect two realities of the same neighborhood: the local community of Niguarda and the long-term family members of the patients (called caregivers) who come from outside Milan.
By giving the former a leading role in the neighborhood and by granting a series of agreements and discounts to new guests, local associations and businesses find a way to dialogue and collaborate for a common goal: the creation of a hospitable neighborhood.
Around 6000 patients are admitted in Niguarda hospital every year from outside of Milan, and all these people come with at least one caregiver. Quoting Nobel prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn (Epel, et. al, 2004), the lifespan of a caregiver can be shortened by 17 years compared to non caregivers because of all their stresses.
T.Ospito is a non-profit service aiming to create a welcoming environment for these caregivers, who come to Niguarda hospital to assist their loved ones in their treatments.
The caregivers have to stay in Niguarda for long periods and it is obviously a psychologically difficult time. The city is new to them, they don’t know anyone, neither they know how long it will take them to be there. We introduce “Amico di quartiere”, a trained local volunteer, who gives desired information about the neighborhood to the carers on a real-time basis. Also we are creating
a network with caregivers and local volunteers which would be a support system for these newcomers in the neighbourhood.
On the other hand, we identified that presently, the local community of Niguarda and the hospital stay as two separate identities with no connection. So our challenge is to bridge these two identities to create a welcoming and collaborative community. In order to do this, we utilize the potential of the neighbourhood; multiple active associations in Niguarda and the local businesses. We partner with them in order to provide caregivers with a one-stop solution to access all the activities, events, local restaurants, bars etc in the neighborhood at a discounted price.
We also partner with the hospital as a trusted channel which introduces T.Ospito to caregivers. We envision an effective and trusted service for caregivers moving to a new hospital neighbourhood, by providing emotional support facilitating valuable human interaction, with the help of the locals, thereby providing better health.
The value for locals is a more meaningful and collaborative community, welcoming distraught caregivers into their neighbourhood. Through our service the hospital can better connect with neighbourhood and also have more comfortable caregivers, thereby better patients.
We believe this is a very novel and innovative service catering to all our user groups. Finally, our objective is to develop a social innovation solution that can be easily replicated in any other neighbourhoods with hospitals, so that our service need not just stay in Niguarda but can be implemented in similar communities around the world.
Stage 1 :
Research and discovery phase of the project.
Stage 2:
Concept development and testing in the community
Stage 3:
CO-DESIGN with the community
During the Brera Design Days we had the pleasure of planning together with the heads of the Niguarda neighborhood committee, who showed their full appreciation and support for developing a collaborative community and bridging the distance between the hospital and the local area. This meeting has allowed us to give a concrete turn to the project.
Stage 4:-
Business development of the project
(My part)
We are mainly focused on creating partnerships with the hospital, business and local associations. We met the managers of the individual activities to create together the type of collaboration in terms of supply and economic sustainability. Then we launched a call to find volunteers and become neighborhood friends. Finally organized an initial meeting between volunteers and caregivers.
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