Anti-microbial resistance (AMR) is an established and growing challenge in developed and developing countries around the world. Effective infection prevention and control (IPC) is essential for tackling the AMR problem. The uptake of appropriate IPC is heavily influenced by human risk perception and consequent behaviour and the way humans (and animals) interact with and within physical care and treatment environments. As the appearance of new antibiotics will continue to prove an expensive and protracted process, the development of effective communication and teaching tools will be essential in ensuring individuals’ understanding and behaviours are in line with scientific recommendations.
This paper outlines a programme of design-led inter-disciplinary research, using dynamic visualisation, participative co-design and iterative prototyping approaches, and utilising data from scientific disciplines. It is illustrated by two case studies, exploring the development and testing of interactive digital educational tools to address IPC issues, the first being set in the hospital ward environment and the second in the small animal veterinary practice environment.
These studies are used to problematize a number of challenges for design-led research in this arena. Whilst scientific data (microbial and behavioural) exist to inform best practise in IPC, they seldom incorporate multiple factors and are published in academic journal formats, thus having limited impact on how practitioners understand and practise IPC in their working environment. How are these data best re-presented in an accessible and meaningfully contextualised manner? The hierarchy and multiplicity of roles of the numerous actors (healthcare practitioner, nursing staff, patient, animal, ancillary services provider) together with the diverse pathogens, and the routes-of-travel through the settings’ spaces create care and treatment ecosystems with a ‘complex entanglement’ of interactions between different individuals, pathogens, and spaces. Microbes are invisible to the naked eye and so without resorting to populist cliché in their representation, how does one convey the diverse nature, location, transmission, density and endurance of these invisible pathogens? Is gaming-like ‘digital realism’ the best approach?
In this work, the author acknowledges the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration. He presents a critical view of the design-led approaches used, questioning design assumptions, and the risks associated with translating complex models into ‘accessible’ formats, and the challenges of translating influential mathematical models and theoretical approaches representing complex eco-systems with their multiple interacting actors and ‘complex entanglements’ in such a way that might change perception of risk, and ultimately behaviour, during daily practice.