Pilot Testing TxCOPE in Travis County
Project Overview
TxCOPE, or Texans Connecting Overdose Prevention Efforts, is a set of tools built for communities to improve overdose response and prevention efforts. The mission is to save lives through empowering the community with near real-time data to inform overdose prevention and response efforts.
I was assigned the Travis County pilot site (Austin, Tx) where I focused on user management and surveying participants to achieve three goals:
Measure Adoption & Engagement: How are users engaging with the platform, incorporating it into their existing workflows, and why?
Product Refinement: Where are the bugs and errors in the platform and how can we optimize user flows through the product?
Develop Plans to Scale: What barriers and facilitators can we learn during the pilot to hone our statewide scaling plans?
Research Setup
Onboarding/Training
I developed a user manual and onboarding presentation to be used at all three pilot organizations I was in charge of.
I stayed available via Zoom, phone, email, and in-person for technical assistance throughout the five month pilot.
Preliminary feedback was obtained at each onboarding event through card sorting activities and note taking.
Questionnaires
I worked with a professional implementation scientist in developing a longitudinal user feedback survey.
The survey was incentivized and deployed monthly throughout the pilot.
The digital survey system for all pilot sites was maintained by myself through REDCap.
Usability Interviews
Towards the latter half of the pilot I began interviewing participants about their experience with the product and conducting usability tests (both remote & in-person).
Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.
I thematically coded 20+ interviews and combined qualitative data with quantitative data for analysis.
Key Outcomes
Additional Variables:
Throughout the pilot there were many suggestions for additional data to be collected, so we added several more data points (i.e. housing status, stigma, experience with 9-1-1).
Supply Management & Distribution Tracking:
Co-designed a supply inventory and distribution tool with pilot participants.
Reduced All Critical Bugs & Errors:
Through the help of pilot participants, and interns that I trained and managed, I was able to relay all of the critical bugs in the platform to the software development team.
Developed Plans to Scale:
Through trial and error during the pilot, myself and the other liaisons collaborated to layout protocols for statewide scale up.
Examples of TxCOPE Before & After Pilot
Pre-Pilot: TxCOPE Overdose Report
Post-Pilot: TxCOPE Overdose Report
Mid-Pilot: Supply Distribution Page
Post-Pilot: TxCOPE Supply Distribution Page