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Reimagining Clinical Collaborations @
Riley Children’s Health at Indiana University Hospitals
Short Summary
During the fall of 2023, I collaborated with bedside nurses and healthcare professionals at Riley Children's Health to develop HealthSync, a platform designed to improve healthcare collaboration significantly. After presenting HealthSync to the hospital leadership, my team and I secured their buy-in and support for further development and potential implementation.
Bookmarks to jump into
Role
UX Research, Interaction Design, Visual Design
Timeline
Aug 2023 - May 2024
Final Product
Collaborations
Product Lead, Pediatric Oncologist, UX Researcher, UX Designer
Product Offerings
Effective communication and robust data security are critical in the healthcare sector to ensure optimal patient care. This product allows the care team on shift to easily manage patient assignments, enhance collaboration with various professionals and specialties, and find the right person to contact, ultimately improving the overall efficiency and quality of care provided.
Offering #1
Calling another personnel
In a time-sensitive situation or for urgent communication, a nurse needs to quickly call another nurse for assistance or collaboration on patient care. The physical device a pager ‘Vocera’ is replaced with a smart voice assistant.
Offering #2
Sending an update regarding a patient to the care team
After attending to a patient, a nurse can easily provide an update to the care team, including doctors, specialists, and other nurses involved in the patient's treatment plan all in one place.
Offering #3
Trying to find the right person to contact
A nurse can easily find and contact the right person within their department or others using this directory, already filtered by their hospital. This could be a physician, specialist, or another nurse responsible for patient care.
The Client
Riley Children’s Health is specialized for pediatric care in Indianapolis and is one of the top children's hospitals in the country. They have a dedicated staff of over 300 healthcare providers - pediatric specialists, nurses and other support staff, for comprehensive care.
The Problem
Nurses frequently find themselves siloed from other healthcare provider groups, resulting in communication barriers and a sense of exclusion. This isolation affects their job satisfaction, which in turn impacts the overall efficiency and quality of care provided to patients.
How can we improve Diagnotes to better fit the needs of Bedside Nurses?
Initial Goals
Dr. Emily Mueller a Pediatric Oncologist from Riley Children’s Health approached with a goal to enhance the Diagnotes application while prioritizing the requirement nurses. Diagnotes is currently used by healthcare providers as the main platform for internal communication and it is not personalized for bed-side nurses.
The overarching objective was to define and refine the core elements of a Bidirectional HIPAA secure text-messaging platform, which facilitates efficient communication and coordination among bed-side nurses.
Personalize Diagnotes for Bedside Nurses
1
Enhancing secure healthcare communication with HIPAA-compliant security
HIPAA Messaging Framework
2
Developing a comprehensive set of features necessary for secure healthcare communication.
Breaking down the problem
Challenge
Diagnotes serves as the main platform for internal communication among healthcare providers, from residents and nurses to physicians and case coordinators. The application handles a significant amount of classified patient data. I aimed to understand the current offerings, workflows, and issues within the product through a thorough audit.
“However, strict data security measures meant that I did not have direct access to the application itself to perform the audit.”
Navigating the Challenge
So, the closest way to understand how Diagnotes works was by talking to Bedside nurses who use the application daily. As the team and I were working on IRB approval, we explored different competitors in the market, and literature to understand communication in Healthcare.
Key Findings from Competitive Analysis & Literature Review
UX Insights for Diagnotes Improvement
The combined insights from the competitive analysis and literature review underscore the critical need for Diagnotes to enhance its platform by integrating secure, real-time messaging, task management, and patient engagement features while also addressing key themes such as technology acceptance, standardized communication, HIPAA compliance, and interdisciplinary collaboration. By adopting these strategies, Diagnotes can significantly improve care coordination and communication efficiency, particularly for Bedside nurses, aligning with industry best practices and addressing the gaps identified in both competitive offerings and current healthcare communication systems.
Interactions with Bedside nurses
Through user interviews and observations during morning and night shifts
While semi-structured interviews offer valuable verbal insights, observations provide a nuanced understanding of real-time interactions with the Diagnotes application, capturing non-verbal cues, workflow dynamics, and environmental factors. This dual approach ensures a comprehensive grasp of user experiences and challenges, strengthening the foundation for meaningful project outcomes. We interacted with 12 Bedside nurses during morning and night shifts, focusing on the following topics:
General Observations
Analyzing communication, coordination, & workflow ease between nurses, residents, & team members.
Response Actions
Recording nurses' & residents' responses to messages, including callbacks, texts, & communication methods.
Culture and Etiquette
Observing the culture and etiquette surrounding the use of Diagnotes by different nurses and residents.
Utilization and Approaches
Examining how Diagnotes is used and the approaches taken by nurses and residents in the current shift.
Communication Practices
Understanding how communication practices affect interactions and identifying any challenges faced.
Insights and Outcomes of Research
Core Insight
“Our explorations uncovered that the problem was not the app (Diagnotes). The real problem was with process and workflows within the hospital.”
This made us shift our efforts and focus to optimize the hospital's communication & coordination at a process level, rather than just updating the app.
New Problem Statement
How can we create a communication system tailored to Bedside nurses, to ensure effective patient care?
Typical workflow of a Bedside Nurse in a day
Shortcomings the bedside nurses faced
Status Availability
Nurses struggle to determine the real-time availability of professionals, affecting collaboration.
Texting Etiquette:
Nurses' informal texting causes misunderstandings, highlighting the need for communication guidelines and training.
Missing Notifications/Alerts:
Nurses face delays in receiving critical alerts on platforms like Diagnotes.
Duplication of Notes:
Nurses face redundant documentation and duplicating notes across platforms.
Difficulty Contacting other Specialities
Nurses face delays identifying the right healthcare professionals for patient care.
Indirect Contact Methods:
Nurses use cumbersome methods, like consulting charge nurses, to reach other specialties, delaying communication.
Redefined Goals — 3 Core Focused Problems
During the brainstorming session, each team member individually voted for three major problems based on factors such as priority and impact on patient care and nurse communication. Subsequently, the top three problems were selected through a voting process.
Based on the votes, the following three problems emerged as the most pressing:
Simplifying Contact with Other Specialties:
Improving identification of responsible individuals and enhancing communication with specialties.
Communicating Care Team Availability
Improving visibility of care team availability for smoother communication and coordination.
Enhancing care team communication through digital platforms.
Boosting the care team's communication efficiency through various digital platforms available.
Branding and Design
For HealthSync, I developed a cohesive branding and visual identity to reflect the product's core values and functionality. The logo features the product name in a clean, modern typeface, with the 'S' uniquely designed as an infinity symbol, symbolizing continuous, seamless care and the endless possibilities of improved healthcare communication and coordination. The visual identity includes a professional color palette and typography that reinforce HealthSync's commitment to enhancing healthcare interactions.
The new branding was followed by the complete design of the user interface and design system, constantly evolving and maintained.
In collaboration with the team, we aimed to pitch HealthSync to Indiana University Health (IUH) as a product under their banner and sought to secure buy-in and support from hospital leadership for further development. To align with IUH’s standards, we meticulously followed their branding guidelines, ensuring that our visual identity seamlessly integrated with their established brand while promoting the unique value of HealthSync.
Complete Case Study Coming Soon.
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