Train more people, to save more lives
A collaborative CPR education platform for teachers and schools
MASTER THESIS
20 weeks, spring 2020
Umeå Institute of Design
In collaboration with Laerdal Medical
CHALLENGE
Disseminating CPR knowledge in society
The risk of dying from a cardiac arrest is increasing by 5-10% for every minute that passes by, if no treatment is initiated. Therefore more people need to be trained in how to act when a sudden cardiac arrest occurs. By training more laypeople we can increase the number of bystanders prepared to act in a critical situation. The overarching aim for this thesis has been to find new ways of delivering Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training in order to train more laypeople.
Reaching out to children through empowering the teachers
Developing CPR skills among children and youth early can lay the foundation for long-term sustainable CPR knowledge in the society at large. Despite CPR training being core content from year 7 in compulsory schools in Sweden, it is not carried out in a majority of them.
Support.
An unclear syllabus opens up for interpretations how to involve CPR in your teaching and contributes to a feeling of insecurity among the teachers.
Provide.
Due to limited budgets many schools do not have access to practical CPR material, which is fundamental for carrying out CPR training and in order to practice your skills.
Exchange.
The teachers in Physical Health and Education are often few or alone in their subject in each school and might have less possibilities to exchange professional knowledge and experiences.
OUTCOME
CiPRA
A collaborative CPR platform for teachers and schools
CiPRA is a service focusing on increasing the knowledge and the conditions for teachers to carry out CPR training, starting already from six years of age. The platform enables teachers to plan and prepare CPR training, both long and short term, irrespective of previous experience.
Developing a learning progression starting from six years of age
The structure of the platform follows the years of the Swedish school system and the recommended steps from The Swedish Resuscitation Council for CPR training and first aid.
Individual lesson planning
The platform unifies knowledge contributions, teaching content and a shared CPR material booking system into individual lesson plannings for every teacher. Booked material as well as the teachers’ individual folders with saved content from pre- made lesson or contributions from the idea bank, can be found in the lesson planning. The platform allows every teacher to have the freedom to organise teaching material in their personal way, according to their needs.
TEACHING CONTENT
Prepare before class
Pre-made lessons aa well as an idea bank based on other teachers knowledge contributions, allow teachers to plan and prepare their lessons, both long and short term.
MATERIAL BOOKING
Access to CPR material
Practical CPR material is distributed from different hubs and shared in-between the schools in the municipality. More advanced CPR material allow teachers to give each pupil personal feedback as well as having a better overview of the class.
CONTRIBUTE WITH YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Low dose high frequency
Teachers’ contributions are collected in the idea bank for CPR activities indoors and outdoors, including potential ways of including CPR in small doses but with high frequency and maybe not when always expected during a school day.
APPROACH
Combining education, healthcare and interaction design practices
Both the problem definition and the final result of this thesis are based on a user-centered research followed by creative workshops and concept development together with teachers and experts including Laerdal Medical, Swedish Resuscitation Council and The Municipality. All the stakeholders has been involved during the whole process in order to engage, explore and develop potential scenarios for how to carry out and improve CPR training at school in the future.
Being the bridge between the knowledge and the pupils
Approaching the research with ethnographic and participatory design, including both teachers, experts and school visits led to the understanding of the current obstacles and the main reasons for why CPR training is not carried out in all the schools today. Obstacles such as lack of material, an unclear syllabus or limited training experiences among teachers are the main reasons for why CPR training are not carried out in all the schools today.
Some schools do CPR training on pilates-balls because they do not have enough money to buy practical material.
- school teacher
Exploring the future of CPR training
A workshop kit was created in order to explore and develop potential future CPR scenarios together with both teachers and experts. Involving the different stakeholders allowed me to get diverse perspectives on different ideas and understand what and how the different ideas could bring value to both the teachers as well as the experts.
Blueprint as a prototype
Using the blueprint as a prototype allowed me and the stakeholders to understand how such a system/service could bring value to each of them. Furthermore the intention was to develop and discuss critical parts where the system could potentially be more vulnerable. In addition, I wanted the blueprint to facilitate for the stakeholders to give suggestions for where their responsibilities would enter in the different core parts of the service.
Having a developed blueprint simplified the step of moving forward creating wireframes for the platform.
”If all students receive practical CPR training in school, a large proportion of the population will have basic skills within a few decades and such a situation could potentially increase CPR intervention by bystanders in OHCA and have a significant impact on the public health.”
- Anette Nord (2017, p.80)