Journey mapping as a novel approach to healthcare: a qualitative mixed methods study in palliative care
Open accessAbstract
Background: Journey mapping involves the creation of visual narrative timelines depicting the multidimensional relationship between a consumer and a service. The use of journey maps in medical research is a novel and innovative approach to understanding patient healthcare encounters. Objectives: To determine possible applications of journey mapping in medical research and the clinical setting. Specialist palliative care services were selected as the model to evaluate this paradigm, as there are numerous evidence gaps and inconsistencies in the delivery of care that may be addressed using this tool. Methods: A purposive convenience sample of specialist palliative care providers from the Supportive and Palliative Care unit of a major Australian tertiary health service were invited to evaluate journey maps illustrating the final year of life of inpatient palliative care patients. Sixteen maps were purposively selected from a sample of 104 consecutive patients. This study utilised a qualitative mixed-methods approach, incorporating a modified Delphi technique and thematic analysis in an online questionnaire. Results: Our thematic and Delphi analyses were congruent, with consensus findings consistent with emerging themes. Journey maps provided a holistic patient-centred perspective of care that characterised healthcare interactions within a longitudinal trajectory. Through these journey maps, participants were able to identify barriers to effective palliative care and opportunities to improve care delivery by observing patterns of patient function and healthcare encounters over multiple settings. Conclusions: This unique qualitative study noted many promising applications of the journey mapping suitable for extrapolation outside of the palliative care setting as a review and audit tool, or a mechanism for providing proactive patient-centred care. This is particularly significant as machine learning and big data is increasingly applied to healthcare.
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Patient journey mapping has been effectively used to understand patient experience, improve quality of care, and inform health service redesign/improvement.
“Of the existing literature, patient journey mapping has been effectively used to understand the patient experience [16–18], improve the quality of care [7, 19], and for informing health service redesign/improvement [13, 15, 20].”
From The hospital-to-home care transition experience of home care clients: an exploratory study using patient journey mapping (2023) · cites this paper as [15]
The Discussion (page unavailable) reports that journey maps helped clinicians understand patient experiences and identify gaps in care and opportunities for change. The Results describe possible applications for improving care and service planning, but do not show that this study improved care quality or informed an implemented service redesign. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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Understanding maternity care providers’ use of data: A qualitative study in Southern TanzaniaPreprint
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“Process visualization is also commonly used in the creation of journey maps [16]; however, in this case, it is focused on the point of view of a single person (participant) that can be compared to journey maps of other team members.”
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Suleman, S., O’Brien, J., McIlduff, C. D., Benson, B., Labine, N., Khan, S., Tse, T., Kawchuk, J., Kapur, P., Abramyk, C. A., et al. (2025) · Canadian Journal of Anesthesia/Journal canadien d anesthésie · doi:10.1007/s12630-025-03037-8
Ofosu, N. N., Luth, W., Genuis, S. K., Tymkow, K., Budiyanto, I., McGuckin, T., Campbell-Scherer, D. L., & Johnston, W. S. W. (2025) · BMJ Open · doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2025-104139
Ndirangu, J., Wechsberg, W. M., Browne, F. A., Bonner, C. P., Minnis, A. M., Nyblade, L. C., Speizer, I. S., Howard, B. N., Rawat, P., & Ahmed, K. (2025) · Reproductive Health · doi:10.1186/s12978-025-02151-6
“They help uncover barriers, facilitators, emotions, and decision-making points along a person’s “health journey” [32].”
Ofosu, N. N., Tate, J., Hruczkowski, C., Feuffel, C., Collier, L., Mathe, N., Bruce, M., Campbell-Scherer, D. L., & Castillo, E. (2025) · Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada · doi:10.1016/j.jogc.2025.103173
Journey mapping paediatric oncology care in Saudi Arabia: A mixed-methods study
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Salvati, Z. M., Rahm, A. K., Williams, M. S., Ladd, I., Schlieder, V., Atondo, J., Schneider, J. L., Epstein, M. M., Lu, C. Y., Pawloski, P. A., et al. (2023) · Figshare · doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.22697226
Doll, J. (2025) · Veterinary Clinics of North America Small Animal Practice · doi:10.1016/j.cvsm.2025.10.005
Golden, S., Lyons, P. G., Young, A., Warner, S., Tuepker, A., Ilea, I., Sullivan, D. R., Slatore, C. G., & Vranas, K. C. (2025) · BMC Health Services Research · doi:10.1186/s12913-025-13864-6
“Second, the creation of a service blueprint map in the context of healthcare delivery is relatively novel, [35] particularly across the continuum of inpatient care.”
Hu, R., Song, R., Liu, G., Wang, L., 唐诗添, & Wang, C. (2026) · BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders · doi:10.1186/s12891-025-09419-9
“It has subsequently been applied to healthcare, giving rise to PJM(Patient Journey Mapping, PJM)– a visualization tool that depicts patient interactions with healthcare services across different stages of disease progression [14, 15].”
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“Patient journey maps usually comprise a horizontal axis and a vertical axis (21).”
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A Qualitative Patient Journey Map of the Ophthalmic Day-Surgery Experience
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Towards Mapping the Problem Space of Cervical Cancer Patients' Journeys in Sub-Saharan Africa
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“According to the steps for constructing a patient journey map [18, 19], the process included: (1) desktop research on clinical protocols to outline the journey framework; (2) participatory observation; (3) patient interviews to refine details; and (4) stakeholder validation.”
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“67 We will develop several discrete event models to reflect common care trajectories among different patient groups.”
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“The construction of the journey map followed established methodological procedures [24] and aimed to present, in temporal sequence, changes in the experiences of foreign undergraduate nursing students within the Chinese learning context.”
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“As patient journey mapping encompasses diverse approaches [17–19], there is no standardised framework for its visualisation, terminology, or reporting.”
Xie, S.-Y., Wan, Z.-B., Shao, Y., Jiang, W.-Y., Hao, M., & Zhao, W. (2026) · Rheumatology International · doi:10.1007/s00296-026-06279-x
“It has increasingly been applied in healthcare research to understand patient experiences and identify opportunities for service improvement [18, 19].”
Wang, N., Wei, R., Liu, G., Li, J., & Moreira, P. (2026) · BMC Health Services Research · doi:10.1186/s12913-026-15325-0
“As mentioned above, PJM has been widely used in chronic disease research and is essential for clarifying patients’ needs, improving healthcare decisions [2, 5–7], understanding the patient experience [22, 23] and enhancing the quality of care [24].”
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Investigating the Elaboration of User Journey Maps: Learning from a Study with Digital Tools
Oliveira, L. F., Serafini, G. H. P., de Souza, M. M., Pagliares, R. M., & Zaina, L. A. M. (2026) · Journal on Interactive Systems · doi:10.5753/jis.2026.8388
“In the literature, applications of UJMs are found in different areas, such as healthcare [Ly et al ., 2021; Maddox et al ., 2019], social service programs [Connell et al ., 2023], product design [Moretti et al ., 2022], among others.”
Day, S., Githaiga, J. N., Graham, J., Murphy, C. F., Bates, O. B., Besigye, I. K., Mash, B., & Redmond, P. (2026) · HRB Open Research · doi:10.12688/hrbopenres.14412.1
Xu, Y., Su, F., Wei, Z., Wei, Y., -, O. C., Wang, X., & Kong, H. (2026) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-11217075/v1
- Authors
- Ly, S., Runacres, F., & Poon, P.
- Affiliations
- Monash University (AU)
- Monash Medical Centre (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Poon, Peter
- Venue
- BMC Health Services Research
- Published
- 2021-09-04
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 915-915
- ISSN
- 1472-6963 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8417950
- OpenAlex
- W3196619312
- Cited by
- 98
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 34 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 6
- FWCI
- 7.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- BMC Health Services Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Palliative and Oncologic Care
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Patient Satisfaction in Healthcare
- Keywords
- journey mapping, palliative care, patient-centered care, end-of-life care, health care delivery, barriers to palliative care, patient experience, care pathways, healthcare encounters, audit tool, specialist palliative care
- MeSH terms
- Australia, Delivery of Health Care, Humans, Palliative Care, Qualitative Research, Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing
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