Feasibility of a community engagement program for developing improved hand hygiene practices to reduce healthcare associated infections in hospitals.

QUT has developed a methodology for community engagement and consultation based on design thinking and facilitated by an interactive booth (known as the InstaBooth), containing different kinds of interactive opportunities (e.g. pin-boards for post-it notes, drawing surfaces, interactive screens, projectors, cameras, small printers, scanners, digitising pens). This community engagement strategy invites participants to leave messages, share comments, memories, drawings or photos with the general public to foster discussion about a specific topic. This study intends to install the InstaBooth for a 2-week period into the outpatient department of Cancer Care Services at the study site to engage consumers, carers, healthcare workers and visitors to the hospital to share their experiences and suggestions for improving hand hygiene practices and/or reducing healthcare-associated infections. The InstaBooth installation with be supervised by nursing staff and members of the research team during opening hours. Research staff will inform healthcare workers, consumers, carers and visitors to the hospital about the InstaBooth by displaying posters, handing out flyers, newsletters, social media and/or TV interviews and will supervise the InstaBooth during the two-week installation period and be available to answer any questions potential participants may have about the study and/or InstaBooth. Consumers, carers, healthcare workers and/or visitors to the hospital who choose to interact with the InstaBooth, will be able to provide feedback using whichever aspect of the booth they choose. QUT and Metro North Hospital and Health Service Consumer Engagement will also facilitate two-three collaborative workshops to be held before and after the InstaBooth installation to ensure the project (composition of InstaBooth components, data collection, data analysis and intervention development) is participant-centred from its inception. These collaborative workshops will invite consumers, carers and/or healthcare workers to share their experiences about a specific healthcare problem to inform the development of possible solutions. The workshops will be 2-8hrs in duration, depending on the stage of intervention design and preferences of the participants. The first workshop will occur within 1 month prior to InstaBooth installation. This workshop will ask participants to suggest topics/research questions that could inform the development of interactive components of the InstaBooth, that aim to engage the public about sharing their experiences and suggestions for improving hand hygiene practices and/or reducing healthcare-associated infections. The second and final workshops will facilitate co-analysis of the data collected from the InstaBooth by workshop participants and inform the development of possible solutions to improve hand hygiene practices and/or reduce healthcare-associated infections across the hospital. The second and final workshops will occur 3-8 weeks post InstaBooth removal and may be combined or held separately; dependent on the collaborative decision of the workshop participants. The workshop facilitators are qualified researchers who have completed their PhD and have experience in qualitative research. The workshop facilitators have previously led similar workshops in conjunction with the InstaBooth to promote community engagement on other topics, such as urban planning and domestic violence. Their role in the workshops for this study will involve employing design thinking and EBCD strategies to promote participant engagement, guide data analysis and intervention design. Once the workshops are completed, one of the possible solutions developed during this project will be implemented into Cancer Care Services, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital as part of a separate study.