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Understanding the user experience in the hospital to bring incremental innovations to its clinic services
3 things to know
Flexibility and adaptation
An iterative approach throughout the project allowed us to adapt the analysis on the hospital context, its rules, and emerging unexpected opportunities.
Observe, understand, create bridges
Understanding behaviors and expectations of users, doctors and professionals was essential to respect the equilibrium between different perspectives in the hospital context.
Deliver innovation pills
Experientia proposed small solutions that could have a great impact on users (patients and HCPs) and that could be more easily integrated into the complex system of a University Hospital.
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Challenge
We carried out a user centered design project within the University Hospital Polyclinic Paolo Giaccone of Palermo with the aim of generating innovative ideas to be deployed in its clinics in the area of cardiology, oncology, opthalmology and haematology. Following a participatory process, we involved the clinics’ medical staff in research and generative activities, detected two concepts and prototyped one of them.
Research
We conducted contextual interviews and shadowing for one week in 5 clinics in the Polyclinic, with physicians and nurses, their heads, and other primary actors in the clinic under study (e.g. postgraduate doctors, psychologists and administrative staff). This research allowed us to understand the functioning of the complex hospital system in the specific context of outpatient visits, aiming to propose solutions benefitting both HCPs and patients.
Design
Based on the workshop results, two design concepts were presented, one focused on effective communication between health professionals and the other on the welcoming and orientation of the patient. Considering the boundaries of the project, we decided to further develop the first concept, to illustrate it with a use scenario, and to integrate with a high level prototype aimed at showing functionalities of the main hospital software that could be implemented in order to facilitate interdepartmental communication.
Impact
The solution aims at facilitating collaboration – both between healthcare professionals within the same ward, and with other hospital facilities – through the optimization and integration of the functions of the Hospital Intranet and the creation of opportunities for meetings between healthcare professionals.
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