What is the tool and what does it aim to do?

The journey mapping tool helps organisations think about how to design digital inclusion support within health and social care services to meet the needs of their people and communities. The tool will help organisations map out their current service and to think about where there are opportunities across the service to introduce and build in digital inclusion support. The tool will help organisations think about the changes required to their current service delivery to start to embed digital inclusion support as part of their service.

What you’ll need to be able to complete the tool / preparation required

An understanding of how the current service works – think about people you will need to invite to join the session to map the ‘current’ service. Decide all the elements that you want to map thinking about the key ‘steps’ in the service, who is involved, what happens at each step in the service and any resources/things that are key to the stage.

You can also use personas to help think about different digital inclusion needs and where in the service these may be best identified and addressed: Pan-London Digital Inclusion Personas.pptx – Google Drive)

The tool can be uploaded to an online collaboration tool (e.g., ‘Miro’, ‘Mural’, ‘Teams whiteboard’) to be used in an online group setting or should be printed out A0 size if possible for use in an in person group setting.

How to use the tool

Begin by mapping the current way the service works and who and what is involved at each stage. Think about any assessment processes, referrals and then the specific parts of the service as someone would experience it. The tool has a dotted line in the middle of the page where you can map the service and ‘define’ each stage individually as it occurs. Underneath each stage you can capture a description on different post it notes of what happens, who is involved, and any ‘things’ that are needed e.g., equipment, leaflets etc.

Once you have mapped the service, use one of the personas to start to think about what digital inclusion support would be needed at each stage of the service journey, who would provide this support and any ‘things’ (tools, equipment etc.) that would be needed. Think about any specific needs for the persona at each stage and then capture what opportunities there are to add the digital inclusion support required above the relevant stage of the service you have mapped. There is a section labelled ‘Opportunities for digital inclusion’ on the map above the middle of the page where the service is mapped.

You can then use the same mapping template to produce a ‘clean’ version of the new ‘future’ service map with the digital inclusion support embedded.

Tips for using the tool

The tool will help your organisation/service think through where digital inclusion support could be introduced in the service, based on the needs of people you support. It also helps organisations/services to understand what changes would need to be made to their current service delivery.

Use the ‘mapping digital inclusion expertise’ tool to alongside this journey map to also help with identifying how the digital inclusion support might be provided.

Use the ‘process’ map example for what a future embedded digital inclusion service could look like.

Use the ‘persona template’ if you are basing the journey mapping on people who access your services and support. The journey map activity will benefit from having a clear idea about the needs of the people you are trying to support. Spending time developing a persona that is a more accurate representation of the people who access your services will be invaluable to the process.

Further reading

Healthcare Improvement Scotland – process and journey mapping