Improving the Hospital Patient Experience
Many stakeholders within the hospital inpatient environment are unsatisfied with the current call light environment.
Hospital Staff.
Call lights should only be used in urgent situations.
We had a code blue the other day, and everyone rushed to help, due to this, one patient's call light was on for 15 minutes. I felt really bad. Turns out she just wanted her door closed.
One patient was hitting their call light every 90-120 seconds on the last four hours of my shift.
Some patients think the call light button is a toy for stress relief.
The call light makes a REALLY annoying ding.
Theirs usually lots of call lights going off at once.
We constantly get interrupted, which leads to exhaustion.
You start to become numb to all the alarms, I go home with ringing in my head.
The call light button is hard to reach [to turn it off], I get into the patients way.
I have so many tasks to do.
Inpatients.
Some call light buttons are not labeled properly.
I accidentally sat on the remote. [which activated the call light].
I can't tell if my call light is on.
I don't use the call light because I don't want the nurses to think i'm bothering them.
I use the call light when I am bored and just want to talk to someone.
Is the nurse going to answer my call??
These nurses are so rude.
I wish the staff would stop bothering me.
I am so bored, there is nothing to do here.
Data collected via user interview containing six participants and secondary research on sites such as the popular online discussion forum Reddit.
Hospital patient satisfaction grants public funding to hospitals if patients are satisfied via NHCS.
But this doesn't tell the full story.
Attempts have been made to improve the call light environment.
The Hilrom Centrella Ecosystem.
The most advanced patient-nurse interaction ecosystem.
Data collected via user interview containing six participants and secondary research on sites such as Reddit, YouTube, Hilrom Website.
Hilrom has the call light flow nailed down pretty good.
But how can we work to further boost patient satisfaction?
Hilrom has a response to this too.
The Hilrom Centrella Experience Pod.
A floating bed remote for $2,000??
With the option to add a TV remote as entertainment.
Its not all bad though.
At least the patient won't sit on the remote or loose it.
And there is an outdated USB A port for the patient to charge their mobile devices, with a phone stand.
I then went out to design an Experience Pod Plus.
The Hilrom Centrella Experience Pod Plus early iteration.
This new iteration of the Experience Pod gives the patient many new features.
But it is definitely "feature heavy."
Lets see what the stakeholders think:
Hospital Staff.
We don't update the whiteboards too much. This would be a good replacement for that task.
We once gave our patients tablets to access MyChart. We stopped doing this, I am unsure why though. I wish it came back.
Bored patients can cause trouble to our staff [like abuse the call light].
I wonder who would update this info [status page]?
What if a patient gained accecss to critical testing results on MyChart, before the Doctor could brief them?
I appreciate how you can customize the call light.
The call light [being on its own separate page] would be harder to access.
How would this sinc with the other Hilrom devices [Centrella Ecosystem]?
This would make the patients much more independent.
I would love if the patient could order their meal on this device, I always loose the paper we use for it.
It would be cool if Doctors could call patients on this device, we use IPads for this.
Inpatients.
I'm really bored here, there is nothing on TV, and I don't know how to use the remote, I would love to be able to watch a movie!
Cable TV is outdated! I would love access to the entertainment features.
I would love a "do not distrub feature" sometimes I just do not want to be bothered unless needed.
I have used the call light to ask about my vitals, I like how I can see them.
I feel like i'm in jail, this would help with that.
Data collected via a structured concept test with two participants and an unstructured concept test with many participants.
Hilrom Centrella Experience Pod Plus MVP.
Patients are greeted with a "home" [status] page, using data sourced from the current Hilrom Centrella ecosystem affordances.
Easily view notifications regarding system and experience status.
Entertain through a variety of different methods such as movies, games, and books. Media available via pay per view, or licensed through content providers.
Interface guided tour when call light activated, meal order is due, or a pain update is requested.
Doctor-to-patient video calls, without the need for an additional device.
Conclusion.
Much more work is needed to make this device fully feasible to hospitals and improve the healthcare experience for involved stakeholders.
Additional Hilrom software must be updated or created to address the hospital staff interaction and setup of the Experience Pod Plus.
But the payoff would be huge.
It would lighten the work load of hospital staff, while providing patients with freedom and entertainment during their hospital stay, boosting NHCS ratings and in turn brining hospitals more public funding (annectdotal hypothesized theory).
For Hilrom, this device would rack in millions.
There are about 781,000 staffed community hospital beds in the U.S.
If Hilrom charged $5,000 (estimated) for this device and 1/4 of U.S. beds buy, it would provide a gross profit of almost $1 Billion dollars.
Methodologies Used.
