Company

Large hospital system that sees a lot of complex patients (defined by the hospital system as patients with 3 or more chronic diseases and social risk. These patients are usually children but are increasingly living into adulthood.)

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Techniques

Artifact Analysis, Secondary Source Research, Ethnographic Interviews, Observation, Journey Mapping, Storyboards, Design Thinking Method

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Tools

Audio Recorder, Camera, Infinite Sticky Notes

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Fun Fact

Most of the factors that affect patient outcomes happen outside the hospital, whether that patient is complex or not.

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SUMMARY

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My university offers a "class" that allows students, for credit, to work with a local hospital system's innovation team to complete design projects. The projects are run and completed independently in small, interdisciplinary groups consisting of undergraduate and graduate students. Groups are periodically given feedback from the hospital's innovation team and the class's professor. The completed projects are "pitched" to the innovation team at the end of the semester. My year, each team was tasked with using the Design Thinking Method to design a product or service specifically for the complex patients that frequented the hospital. I served as the research-focused member of my team and also helped with product design.

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METHODS

Empathize

The first step is in the Design Thinking Process is to empathize with your user by understanding their wants, needs, beliefs, and daily rhythms. Most of my semester was spent on this stage of the process, as this is where most of the research occurs. First, I used artifacts and online secondary sources, like blogs, journal articles, and medical device advertisements to get to know the complex patients from afar, as my team and I did not have direct access to these patients or their caregivers. The hospital's innovation team had already made some home visits to the residences of complex patients, and shared the images and interview transcripts from those visits with the teams. After this initial data collection, I interviewed hospital staff and medical device manufacturers and distributors about their specific challenges in serving complex patients. I then did some observational research in hospital common areas, like the lobby and the dining hall.

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Define & Ideate

After empathizing with our users, we sought to define the problem. We started by ideating with sticky notes containing our most relevant insights. From there, we created user journeys and storyboards, then brainstormed further. We decided the most manageable problem to tackle with our timeframe and resources was the problem of organizing and distributing massive amounts of information related to these patients. Complex patients have many different conditions, so they often take many different medicines, each with its own dosage, timing and side effects, use devices that often update and require the user to completely relearn the system, and see an average of 6 different doctors that all need to know all of the patient's information. Currently, in this hospital system, most of the aforementioned information is distributed to caregivers in paper format in binders and folders. We also learned from our research that most of our patients' caregivers have smartphones. So, after more brainstorming and ideating, we decided to design an organizational app primarily for the caregivers of complex patients in this hospital system.

Below is one of our ideation exercises.

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Prototype & Test

First, we brainstormed what features the app could have, and, according to our research, which were necessary and which were "nice to haves". We also determined that, since most of the caregivers organized their patient's medical information in binders, that using a UI that involved binders would be easiest for them to understand and use. Unfortunately, due to lack of access to the users themselves, we could not test this assumption with them, although we did test the idea with hospital staff. We created basic wireframes on paper and tested them with our class, then one of my teammates created basic, then more advanced, wireframes using computer programs. In an ideal world, I would have liked to have done some A-B testing and with our users and gotten general impressions them.

Below are some highlights from our early wireframes. These wireframes were created by my teammate.

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Outcomes

At the end of the semester, our team presented our design to the hospital's innovation team. The hospital innovation team did not choose to pursue our product due to the funds it would require to actually create. However, they did say that parts of our work could be incorporated into their future projects.

 

Reflections

This was my first formal project using the Design Thinking method, and my second-ever user research project. I have learned a lot about both user research and product design since this project, but the structure and guidance of the class setting was instrumental in teaching me what steps a formal Design Thinking project should take, what the timeline should look like, and the importance of designing with a team who can challenge your assumptions and ideas. This project confirmed my passion for user research, and showed me exactly what knowledge gaps I needed to address during the rest of my time at my university.