Iwona Faferek & Bryan Kulba

Design 493
The Challenge
• Errors in treatment in hospitals result in up to an esti-
mated 100,000 deaths per year in the US.
• Up to 500,000 people are given the incorrect medication
per year.
• Costs associated with recovery and treatment errors
amounts to $17 to $29 billion per year.
• In a Canadian survey, 20% of nurses reported that they
had ‘occasionally’ or ‘frequently’ administered incorrect
medication to patients.
• Errors include adverse drug events and improper trans-
fusions, surgical injuries and wrong-site surgery, sui-
cides, restraint-related injuries or death, falls, burns,
pressure ulcers, and mistaken patient identities.
user centered Design
• involves users throughout all stages of the design
process

Service design - Design that helps innovate services to

make them more usable and efficient.

Desktop walkthrough - an exercise in which designers act

out a process or procedure in miniature using small toys
on a table.

User personas - real or fictional representation of a person

who stands at the center of the design problem.
Workshop
Goal: to identify issues at various stages, and to envision
solutions to increase efficiency and reduce errors in
treatment.
So what did we learn?
So what did we learn?
• Desktop Walkthroughs stimulate both systematic and
creative understanding of a problem
So what did we learn?
• Desktop Walkthroughs stimulate both systematic and
creative understanding of a problem
• Roleplaying can create empathy
So what did we learn?
• Desktop Walkthroughs stimulate both systematic and
creative understanding of a problem
• Roleplaying can create empathy
• Everyone has their own problems
Frog Design
• Worked with manufacturer Welch Allyn;
• Service design research - interviews, roleplaying,
testing;
• Discovered that improper documentation of records
caused errors in treatment, slowed treatment times and
caused losses in staff productivity;
• Developed point of care device which centralized record
keeping, increased accuracy of patient monitoring and
treatment.
MEdbook
• “To restructure primary care systems to reduce repeated
steps both within and between visits and better utilize
time for patients and staff alike.”
• Used service design techniques such as storytelling, user
personas, and mapping user journeys to understand the
problems and derive solutions.
• Patients valued the contact time with their doctors
most, so the goal was to increase this time in new and
creative ways.
• MedBook, an in-hospital, web accessible application
that allows patients to connect with their doctors as
well as their medical history.
Questions?