VA Redcoat Volunteer Program

A Strategic Plan for boosting VA Volunteer Program

UX Project

Product Design

Massart MDES x VA Redcoat Volunteer Program

Project Type

Massart MDES

Co-op project with VA Boston to improve volunteers and patients' experiences.

UX Researcher (5), Product Designer (3), Product Manager (2)

UX Designer
Product Designer
User Researcher

Feb 2023 – May 2023

My Team

My Role

Timeline

Outcomes

Highlight Features

Social Recruitment

Training

Patient Experiences

Process

Project Overview

In this project, MassArt Mdes collaborate with VA Hospital Red Coat Ambassadors to help them improve the work and user experiences by developing opportunities, formulating proposals, delegating tasks, executing tasks, driving presentations, communicating with Client.

This project was completed in Spring 2023 by Design Innovation graduate students at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in partnership with the VA Hospitals of Boston, Bedford and Northampton, MA.

VA Redcoat Ambassador Volunteer Program exists to serve the Veterans through the delivery of accessible and exceptional care by redcoat volunteers.

RCA: RedCoat Ambassador, who serves as a volunteer providing nessecery assistant to veterant patients and their spouses.

Discover

To gain deeper insights into the expectations and challenges faced by RCAs, we teamed up to do the shadowing and interviews in different locations. I was in charge of the Bedford campus. Through these intervies and shadowing, we discovered the main concerns and needs for the RCA groups and the patients group.

Three different locations were assessed

West Roxbury
Jamaica Plane
Bedford VA locations.

Shadowing

Experts

1 Wounded Warriors Project
1 Founder of Practical Health

Staff

3 VA administrators
1 Medical staff

RCA

2 Redcoats

Patients

4 VA patients

Interviews

RCA Demographics

According to the shadowing, half of the VA Redcoats populations are from veterans' background.

Most of RCAs are between 45 and 87 years old.
Bedford campus have totally 15 Redcoat volunteers, and 3 people are in charge of one gate.

Define

RCA's Journey Map

Understand the function and structure of RCA
Identify the barriers and challenges that RCA experience in their work
Explore the potential benefits and motivations that may encourage people to be a RCA
Evaluate the effectiveness of existing RCA practices, and identify areas for improvement
Assess patients satisfaction with rca's work and uncover their needs aren't being met

Research Goals

Patients' Experiences – (Veterans' psychological needs after war)

Most of the veterans had experienced traumatized moments during the war, and it is really hard to get rid of the PTSD side effects in rest of their lives.

According to the interviews, 2 out of 6 warriors are defined as disability after their experiences in wars.

76% of the warriors reported to have PTSD and nearly half of them reported to have moderate or severe PTSD symptoms during the surveys.

We conduceted more than 6 interviews, and there are 6 interviewees indicated to experienced though the war. We also interviewed the Cheif Design Officer of WWP(Wound Warrior Project), and related information are provided accordingly.

Doctor did not check my skin and stated to do self checks at home because she is to busy with people who have skin cancer.

Alex Smith

Veteran Outpatient

The VA does not seem to care about getting my medication to me in a timely manner, making it easy to request refills, or giving me the medication I need to manage my conditions.

Drew Carlyle

Veteran Outpatient

More time should be spent with the patient. Feeling of somewhat rushed My last two visits.

Charlie McMann

Veteran Outpatient

PTSD made me feel like I was drowning. The day I realized I needed help was the day I almost took my own life. If WWP hadn't been there when I finally decided to get help, I don't think I'd still be alive today

Christ Hoff

Wound Warrior

I had a rough transition. I didn't have a good support. I was isolated where I retired out of

Ben Read

Wound Warrior with experience after the war.

Patients' Quotes

Some lots are too far away from where patient need to go
Difficult for patients to
be on time for the
appointment
Hard for patients who
have life threatening
problems to commute

Parking Lot and Commuting Problem

Navigation's Problems

Some va locations are old, consisting of many scattered different buildings
It's easy to get lost, and it's hard for people to find where they're going with appointment
Too confusing for patients, and it takes a lot of time for volunteers to become familiar with them.

There are 86 buildings on the Bedford campus with a big tunnel connecting each building.

VA Hospital Maps

Keytakeaways

Insights for RCA Recruitment

RCA's membership is mainly veterans and their families, driven by passion.
Passion for the military does not resonate with many young individuals.
RCA struggles to appeal to younger demographics.
Inadequate volunteers in this program with the lack of physical capabilitiy

NEEDS

Physical capability of young adults
Visibilitiy of RCA program in college and high school communities
Engagement of young adult from resonating their passions in RCA program

Develop

Insights for RCA trainings

Inprofessional RCA Trainings
Large VA hospital campus with complicate locations and routes
Difficulty for new volunteers to start work without professional and systematic training.
the specificity of the medical industry requires staff work to be accurate and rigorous. The lack of formal training for volunteers can directly affect patients.

NEEDS

Establishment of a professional volunteer training mechanism.
Help new volunteers effectively familiarize themselves with the work environment and master professional skills.
Understand their responsibilities.
Ensure that volunteers can provide correct and standardized services to patients.

Problem Areas

From the research, we discover the problem areas in RCA's recuitment, RCA trainings and patients' experiences.

Insights for Patient experiences

VA sites are difficult to navigate and are so vast that many patients need wheelchair and navigation services, which is a major duty of the VA.
Lack of efficiency in wheelchair services
Hard transition for warriors from warriors to civils
VA patients are usually elderly veterans who were traumatized from their experiences at war, they are lack of psychological support
High burden job for RCA senior volunteers to push wheelchairs
The physical effort required to push wheelchairs also means RCAs have less energy to engage in better communication with patients.

NEEDS

RCA should have reduced burden in pushing wheelchairs to free up time for their primary position at the entrance.
Patients require assistance with wheelchair transportation to appointment areas, accompanied by brief conversations.
Mental support for the ease of PTSD for wound warriors

How Might We Statements

How Might We reach out to the
non-veterans audience in order to improve
the visibility of the RCA program?

Recruitment

How might we improve the RCA training process
to build volunteer confidence and effectiveness?

RCA Training Handbook

How might we ease the burden of RCA on pushing wheelchair while satisfy patients communication demand?

RCA and Patients' experiences improvement

Ideations

After user research, our team held a brainstorming session where each member shared their ideas. We grouped similar ideas on a whiteboard and provided constructive feedback.

Selected Ideas

Recruitment & Social Outreach

RCA Trainnings

VA Patient Experience Improvement

Solutions

Recruitment Plan

The RCA faces a significant challenge with understaffing and a considerable workload, predominantly relying on older volunteers. It is crucial for them to attract additional volunteers, particularly younger individuals who are physically active, to alleviate these issues.

However, what the RCA offers currently lacks appeal to the younger demographic, who see little incentive to participate.

Research indicates that the RCA predominantly consists of veterans and their families, driven by passion for their cause.

This passion, however, does not resonate with young individuals who do not feel a connection to the military. Identifying what motivates young people to engage is crucial. Additionally, enhancing the promotion of the RCA and boosting its visibility among the youth are critical steps in growing the number of young volunteers.

Recruitment Plan

User Experience

Project impact:

Improve RCA work efficiency
Enhance communication between RCA and patients
Ease the burden of RCA
Patients experience more circumspect service

Implementation needs:

Financial
Storage
Maintenance

Training

CURRENT HANDBOOKS

Inconsistent design and information between VA location
specific handbooks
Hard to navigate and digest important information
Location specific handbooks have the opportunity to
have more specific information about their VA hospitals
Finding the handbook online is difficult
No reference of Redcoat volunteer roles, responsibilities,
or applications online or in the handbooks

Trainings

UPDATE HANDBOOKS

Create clarity around Redcoat Training
Re-imagine handbook design system to make it more efficient
Make it easier to transition an outgoing Redcoat with an incoming Redcoat
Enrich Redcoat community by making their roles clearly defined with case studies to reference
Online access resources allow new volunteers/current Redcoat to quickly search and reference training objectives, role, responsibilities, or case study scenarios.