Making Hospitals Safer for Healthcare Personnel & Patients

White Rice x International Federation of Red Cross (ICRC)

BEHAVIOUR CHANGE COMMUNICATION

Challenge

Violence against Healthcare Providers is a prevalent and widespread phenomenon condemned internationally. It creates an unsafe environment where valuable time is lost that could be spent saving lives. Under the Health Care in Danger (HCID) initiative, the International Red Cross (ICRC) in Pakistan aimed to address the issue of violence against health workers in the emergency departments of public hospitals.

Approach

Together with the ICRC, we developed a multi-faceted campaign to build the much-needed trust that was lacking for healthcare professionals among patient attendants.

To develop a thorough and integrative design focusing on all the touchpoints, our team embedded themselves in two large hospitals in Karachi and Peshawar conducting immersive HCD research, going as far as to become patients themselves to map the customer experience process. We identified trigger points for confrontation through day-long observations, visual ethnographies, heuristic analysis, interviews, and FGDs with patients, attendants, and healthcare staff.

The resulting campaign, ‘Bharosa Karein’, called on patients to trust healthcare staff, even amidst their frustration and anger. It retold the story of doctor-patient care through a contextual lens, depicting what happens when time is lost in fighting with healthcare staff– patients risk losing their lives.

The campaign aimed to create change on multiple levels. We generated an emotional, empathic mass media campaign through TV and radio ads. The government of Pakistan endorsed the message of the campaign, while an extensive networking effort by the ICRC lobbied for the enforcement of policies towards safer healthcare settings. Celebrities also came on board to show their support and advocate for the well-being of the public health industry.

A widespread Social Media campaign distributed educational material on medical emergency preparedness. Hundreds of youth volunteers took the initiative of reaching the public on the ground. They carried out communication efforts across Pakistan, approaching people with scenarios on how they’d respond when presented with a medical emergency.