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Background: As co-design and community-based participatory research gain traction in health and disability, the challenges and benefits of collaboratively conducting research need to be considered. Current literature supports using co-design to improve service quality and create more satisfactory services. However, while the 'why' of using co-design is well understood, there is limited literature on 'how' to co-design. We aimed to describe the application of co-design from start to finish within a specific case study and to reflect on the challenges and benefits created by specific process design choices. Methods: A telepractice re-design project has been a case study example of co-design. The co-design was co-facilitated by an embedded researcher and a peer researcher with lived experience of disability. Embedded in a Western Australian disability organisation, the co-design process included five workshops and a reflection session with a team of 10 lived experience and staff participants (referred to as co-designers) to produce a prototype telepractice model for testing. Results: The findings are divided into two components. The first describes the process design choices made throughout the co-design implementation case study. This is followed by a reflection on the benefits and challenges resulting from specific process design choices. The reflective process describes the co-designers' perspective and the researcher's and organisational experiences. Reflections of the co-designers include balancing idealism and realism, the value of small groups, ensuring accessibility and choice, and learning new skills and gaining new insights. The organisational and research-focused reflections included challenges between time for building relationships and the schedules of academic and organisational decision-making, the messiness of co-design juxtaposed with the processes of ethics applications, and the need for inclusive dissemination of findings. Conclusions: The authors advocate that co-design is a useful and outcome-generating methodology that proactively enables the inclusion of people with disability and service providers through community-based participatory research and action. Through our experiences, we recommend community-based participatory research, specifically co-design, to generate creative thinking and service design. Plain language summary: Making better services with communities (called co-design) and doing research with communities (e.g. community-based participatory research) are ways to include people with lived experience in developing and improving the services they use. Academic evidence shows why co-design is valuable, and co-design is increasing in popularity. However, there needs to be more information on how to do co-design. This article describes the process of doing co-design to make telepractice better with a group of lived experience experts and staff at a disability organisation. The co-design process was co-facilitated by two researchers – one with a health background and one with lived experience of disability. Telepractice provides clinical services (such as physiotherapy or nursing) using video calls and other digital technology. The co-design team did five workshops and then reflected on the success of those workshops. Based on the groups' feedback, the article describes what worked and what was hard according to the co-designers and from the perspective of the researchers and the disability organisation. Topics discussed include the challenge of balancing ideas with realistic expectations, the value of small groups, accessibility and choice opportunities and learning new skills and insights. The research and organisational topics include the need to take time and how that doesn't fit neatly with academic and business schedules, how the messiness of co-design can clash with approval processes, and different ways of telling people about the project that are more inclusive than traditional research. The authors conclude that co-design and community-based participatory research go well together in including people with lived experience in re-designing services they use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Telepractice service delivery of allied health interventions to people with disability can potentially reduce access barriers and improve service equity. However, questions remain regarding telepractice functionality for people with disability. This study addressed questions related to how allied health clinicians and managers perceive telepractice as functioning in the provision of therapy services to people with disability. Methods: Thirteen interviews of allied health clinicians and managers from across Australia were conducted between 21 November and 22 February via MS teams. Qualitative methodology and critical realist theoretical paradigm underpin the study. Data analysis was completed using a reflective thematic analysis method and five themes were generated and described utilising an analytic metaphor. Results: The study themes were described in relation to a shopping for shoes analytic metaphor and the five themes included (1) a shoe for every foot, (2) planned purchases, (3) shoe on the other foot, (4) you need both shoes and (5) help choosing their shoes. In summary, the function of telepractice fits differently for each individual, similar to pairs of shoes. Conclusions: Telepractice has its own strengths and weaknesses and isn't a direct substitute for in‐person sessions, much like left and right shoes are similar but not the same. The results support participant perceptions that telepractice functions best as an adjunct to in‐person sessions through a flexible hybrid delivery model in the provision of therapy services to people with a disability. A strategy for improving perceived usefulness may involve positioning telepractice as unique with strengths and weaknesses, not replacing in‐person care. Patient or Public Contribution: The paper forms part of a larger codesign process which included customer and carer participants throughout the design and planning of the project, inclusion of a peer researcher, and the selection of the analytic metaphor including in the findings of this article production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Telepractice has the potential to align with the directive to reduce inequalities by United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10. Telepractice additionally addresses a national digital health strategic plan for accessible digitally enabled models of care. To plan improvements, it is essential to understand the experience of telepractice for people with disability, which may be achieved through an approach such as journey mapping. The current article provides both a disability‐specific case study and a methodological guide for the inclusion of customers and clinicians in the meaningful redevelopment of services. The Perth, Australia‐based case study aimed to gain insights into the experience of telepractice for people with disability. The methodological aim describes using co‐design to produce a journey map in collaboration with customers and clinicians, for potential replication in a wide range of health and social care contexts. Method: Interview transcripts gathered from a cohort of customer participants (n = 17) were used to inform the journey map. A group of customers (n = 5) and clinicians plus one manager (n = 5) distributed the findings onto a customer experience journey map during a co‐design workshop. The journey map describes the emotional experience and actions taken, along five phases of a timeline through telepractice service interactions: (1) before, (2) selecting telepractice, (3) telepractice preparation, (4) during telepractice sessions and (5) after. Results: A journey map visualisation of customer experiences was produced that identified strengths of telepractice service delivery (flexibility) while noting challenges (with technology) as opportunities for improvement. The consensus of participants was the desire to have access to telepractice currently and in the future, in addition to in‐person delivery. Conclusion: These findings are valuable in the context of advocating for the incorporation of customers and clinicians through co‐design workshops in the content analysis and creation of a journey map that is representative of the lived experience of accessing telepractice services. Patient or Public Contribution: The paper forms part of a larger co‐design process that included customer participants throughout the design and planning of the project, inclusion of a peer researcher and the co‐designers in the workshops, journey map and this article production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methods and strategies utilised to facilitate focus group discussion within a co-design context have a fundamental impact on the opportunity for participants to actively engage with the content. This is a description of the strategies our project utilized including visual prompts and preparation guide to assist both service users and staff participants facilitate access to concepts discussed within our focus group sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the experiences and perspectives of users of teletherapy living with a disability and working with them, offers the potential to improve its capacity to meet their requirements. Literature examining the effectiveness of interventions delivered via teletherapy often fail to explore the motivators and implementation needs of the users. The scoping review aimed to examine the research evidence addressing user perspectives of teletherapy in delivery of allied health interventions to the disability community. The Joanna Briggs scoping review protocol methodology was employed with searches completed across five databases (ProQuest, CINAHL (EBSCO), Medline (OVID), Scopus, Google Scholar) in September 2021. The search yielded a total of 1365 results, 147 progressed to full text screening and 22 articles included in thematic analysis. Findings were split into themes addressing organisational and implementation based considerations for teletherapy, and secondly the social and contextual considerations of the Target Participants. The two areas of interest were addressed under each theme some of which include resourcing and upskilling, financial, challenging the status quo, moving from hands on to coaching and the utilisation of a hybrid model of intervention delivery. Teletherapy is viewed as creating a distinct set of benefits and challenges compared to in person service delivery, which impact individual members of the disability community differently. The scoping review identifies a strong need from recipients to trial teletherapy and experience it personally to facilitate understanding of how it can best suit an individual. More than being viewed as an alternative to in person services, teletherapy is viewed by users as better suited as a complementary service with flexibility of hybrid model opportunities valued above exclusive use of one over the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]