Thank you for your comments!
Seems like a great project! I think finding new ways to address the social determinants of health is really important, and if done well, this seems like a nice way to do this without using provider time or significant behavioral health resources. A qualitative approach also feels like good way to get meaningful feedback, especially if these are initial QI efforts (as opposed to your usual likert scale surveys that often accompanies resources).
I would suggest starting with the observation period, so you can get a sense of who uses the help desk, how they use it, and how they interact with volunteers, and use this to inform your interviews. I agree with your decision to do interviews over focus groups, both because of potentially sensitive material and also because of the nature of ED visits (I doubt you'd have luck having people come back for a focus group to the ED, or having them stay and wait for enough people to be assembled for a focus group since they've already spent so much time waiting in the ED). Recruiting patients directly from the help desk seems like it would be the easiest way to recruit, and you'll probably get the best immediate feedback about the help desk itself, although it would be interesting to be able to find patients after they've left the ED and tried to access the resources that they learned about at the help desk so you can really get a sense of the whole process. But I can't think of an easy way to find those people, unless you recruit from the actual agencies that they get referred to, and I think this would be extra challenging and probably not worth it. To find a place to do the interviews, I would suggest talking with the charge nurse to find a quiet place to do interviews, and it will likely change depending on the day and how busy it is.
This seems like a great program!
You appear to have thought extensively about the different subjects of your study. I'm not sure the timeline of your project (over several months, a year?), because depending on how much time you have, 15-20 interviews of just patients alone seems like a lot. That being said, I'm new to this too, and that might be completely reasonable. I think that in regards to where to conduct the interview, considering that it is located in an ER, I'm sure you could find a room to use for your interviews. You could interview patients right after they have used the help desk (kill two birds with one stone, since you would be observing the interaction and then interviewing them/you would know if they were > 10 min and thoughtful interactions). That would work for a handful of your intended patient interviews, since I don't believe you are intending to camp out at the Help Desk day in/day out. You could ask the help desk volunteers to help you determine appropiate participants for your study (meaningful interaction, etc). In terms of follow up, you could just ask the participants initially if they would be willing to be contacted again and then note down their numbers for follow up. I wonder if a focus group might be more appropriate for the draft codebook process?
this looks terrific! I really like the wording of your qualitative research question, very appropriate with use of words "experience" and "how". I also like how you described why you chose to do interviews. It isn't required that you verify your ideas with your participants, though it is a very nice idea. I think you may be surprised by how people are often comfortable talking about ideas that you feel would be hard to talk about. Would be great if you can get someone on your team with qualitative research experience to guide you.