Mollie Courtenay is our service designer and researcher. She divides her time between SH:24 and Mindwave Ventures (doing some very cool projects in mental health, check them out). She's been with SH:24 since its early days and has seen lots of changes and achievements - let's get to know her a bit better...
What have you been up to lately?
Chris and I recently visited the pharmacy we'll be partnering with to deliver chlamydia treatment. It was a wet day...when I turned up I was given a big blue roll to dab myself down. We were there to run through the process of an SH:24 user getting a positive chlamydia result via text message to the pharmacists processing and posting out a prescribed treatment. Next is running a set of friends through the process end to end (with empty treatment boxes).
I've been redesigning how we present the sexual and genital health information on sh24.org.uk, taking what we have heard from users and stakeholders works well about the contraception pages and translating that over - so optimisation.
Whilst SH:24 STI testing is being received well in our new areas, we are working on the next thing and the next thing. So recently we handed over oral contraception order journeys to our developers...
You've been with SH:24 since its earliest days, what have been the big milestone moments for you?
As a designer, you can invite yourself into all sorts of situations and environments. When we were Beta testing SH:24 in late summer 2014, (having received my honorary contract), I was able to view the triage list within our local clinic, identify asymptomatic users in the queue, pull out their record, call them from the waiting room, and walk them through ordering and completing the SH:24 STI test kit. These were the first people to use SH:24 that weren't our friends, they weren't trying it out as a favour - they were real users.
We have a big brown sheet on the wall, that shows the number or orders we received per day. I remember the wide-eyed excitement of the first time Glyn totalled our weekly orders as '104' - crazy to come in now and see that number beaten daily.
More recently, again wide-eyed Glyn on the phone - finding out we had won another contract (Editor: we'll tell you more about that soon, promise).
You work on other projects that involve design and healthcare outside of SH:24, what has attracted/led you to this area?
Mollie talking to HealthTech Women about virtual reality in mental health
I studied graphic design but was not interested in the beauty of beautiful things but behaviours. I twisted my uni briefs into opportunities to explore human behaviour, motivations and decision making.
I was also convinced that people 'living it' should be the people designing or as close to that process as possible.
So SH:24 makes total sense to me. On my first day, Chris and I mapped user journeys, the next day we were walking those through and refining them with clinicians and users in clinics.
On Thursday morning I was at the HealthTech Women Virtual Reality Breakfast seminar talking about some work we’ve been doing at Mindwave. I had people come and say to me afterwards, things like 'the work you do is so interesting’ ‘you must be really excited about it’. They’re right, but I don’t think I could work on something that didn’t enable me to learn and get excited about the possibilities. I’ve got so many friends who have so much to offer and yet so bored of the work they do - that doesn’t feel like an option for me.
What have you seen recently that you thought was an exciting new product or service?
Collaboration excites me, whilst waste and inefficiency do the opposite.
So I'd say - LoGov http://logovplatform.co.uk/ LoGov is a new co-funded way for councils to digitise paper and phone services. I'm excited to see what happens next and who will be the brave people to step out of the norm and try this out, get stuck in and create opportunities.
What do you do for fun?
I've always enjoyed playing football, I'm playing in a 5-a-side tournament on Sunday with my Wycombe Wanderers ladies team.
I do a lot of walking and hiking - I find it amazing how far you can get and what you can see by just making your feet move. I've just got back from walking about off season Austria.
I also like making things...like birthday cards, a shoe rack, egg curry and recently a pineapple like door stop that weighs exactly what my friend's daughter weighed at birth - I thought it would be interesting for her to pick up and play with as she grows bigger and heavier.
Thank you Mollie, really looking forward to seeing your latest work on the SH:24 website.