Take the ‘wait’ out of the waiting room
PROBLEM
Patients often experience long wait in the waiting room before seeing their clinicians, however, the waiting room are rarely designed to accommodate or solve such issue. In Syracuse University Health Center, besides the wait, it is not uncommon for students to have unpleasant interaction with the receptionist, and confusing check-in process.
Group Research
Ideation
MedTrack
Literature Review Fly-on-the-wall Case Studies Interviews
Persona Experience Map Brainstorming Wire-frame Paper Prototype Usability Testing
Wire-frame User Interface Features Render
PRELIMINARY RESEARCH Our team focused on the stage of how patient decide to go to a certain facility, how they gain better understandings of their illness, and how do they feel waiting for the clinicians.
FOCUS Entice and enter phases of patients’ experience of going to the medical facility for the first time for an unidentified illness.
ZocDoc, an application that helps users find doctors for their symptoms, health insurance, and locations. It also provide doctors’ ratings from other users.
Health Spot, a medical device that allows the user to receive medical diagnosis with a clinician over a video call and self-operated medical instruments.
FLY-ON-THE-WALL I conducted the research by observing several waiting rooms in the nearby hospitals and health centers, focusing on the behavior of the patients, the interaction among patients, as well as their interaction with their surrounding.
Limited selection of Entertainments Signs of restrictions throughout the space
INSIGHTS • Patients rarely engage with entertainment provided by the facilities • The arrangement discourages interaction among the patients. • Patients are mostly on their phones, laptops or other mobile devices.
Seat arrangments discourage social interaction
CASE STUDY We researched though scholarly articles, and case studies about the potential solutions to improve patients’ experience in the waiting rooms as well as understanding other difficulties they may encounter before seeing the clinicians.
INSIGHTS • Allowing a constant, relevant flow of information can make the patient feel more in control of the situation. • The healthcare organizations need to focus on making the customers feel that they are not wasting time.
Healthcare Quality: Waiting Room Issues Vineeth R. Yeddula University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Improving Patient Experience in A&E Design Council
Improving the Hospital Patient Experience Through Service Design Diane Klein and Allison Matthews Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation
INTERVIEWS I conducted interviews with people who have recent experience in the waiting rooms. I asked them about the difficulties, the success of it, as well as what would they change about it. “Sometimes when people know they’re going to wait 30 minutes, they’re less frustrated when they wait 30 minutes.”
Derek SU Health Service visitor
Cam Crouse ER Visitor
Laura SU Health Service visitor
“The wait wasn’t that bad, the most unbearable part was the unclear indication of the check-in process”
INSIGHTS • Clear indication of wait time can greatly reduce patients’ stress in the waiting room • Patients often have a hard time understanding the check-in process • Receptionist are often annoyed and disrespectful
Steve
Steve
Sam
Medical Student
Family member of a terminally-ill patient
SU Health Service visitor
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The Good, the bad and, the ugly
For visitors of SU the pain is not th the confusing chec unfriendly re
U Health Center, he wait time, but ck-in process and eceptionists
USER PERSONA
Remy Danton
18 year old Public Broadcasting student
Leslie Knope
35 year old Mother of a two-year-old girl
Leo McGarry
63 year old veteran Cancer survivor
He has an infection on his finger from using exact-o knife.
His daughter recently contracted food poisoning.
He needs to go to the hospital for a routine exam.
He needs to get his finger examined at SU health center but he also needs to finish up editing his final project.
She is afraid of her son getting other illness from the hospital.
His immune system is still weak from chemotherapy, and the hospital settings remind him of past awful memories.
EXPERIENCE MAP
Entice
Received email from SU Health Center Decides to use it so he so he can finish his project on time.
Enter
Enters the URL and create an account based on his SUID#
Doctor told her about this web service.
Was told about this service from his son
Decides to use this service to protect her son from other illness
He wants to spend as little time in the hospital as possible due to his weak immune system and past memory
Creates appointment
Uses the website to create appointment with the help of his son.
Waits in her car with her son till she is informed that the doctor will be ready for them in 10 minutes.
Waits at the nearby park to enjoy the nice weather outside
Creates appointment.
Engage
Works in the lab while receiving notifications of his wait time.
Using call update
Exit
He spends 10 minutes to get his finger checked out and receive medication
She has a swift meeting with the doctor and then drives to get the medication from Walgreen nearby
He spends only 30 minutes in the hospital and only 3 minutes at the waiting room
Extend
Has really efficient and convenient experience with the health service.
Spends the minimum time required in the hospital setting
Quick and efficient hospital trip.
He finishes his video project on time with great quality of work
She feels less anxious about her son’s health
He doesn’t need to spend a long time in place that makes him feel uncomfortable.
BRAIN STORMING I wanted to find a solution that can streamline the process, reduce patinets’ waiting time, and overall reduce their time spend in the process and the anxiety from the experience.
Combining multiple ideas to create a service that can streamline the process of creating appointment and check-in for an appointment.
PAPER PROTOTYPE I created low-fidelity paper prototypes and rough wire-frame of the website, following four main paths, search, creating appointments, check-in appointment, and receiving update.
SEARCH
C R E AT E
CHECK-IN U P D AT E
USABILITY TESTING
I started by giving my participants a specific scenarios from my user scenarios. I then asked them to perform specific task. By conducting multiple rounds of usability testing with prototypes, I was able to refine the wire-frame and visual layout by understanding the flaws and challenges from the users’ points of view.
INSIGHTS
SEARCH
ACCOUNT
The search bar, and result page were changed to accommodate different kinds of searching keywords and search results.
A triangle with was added next to the username to provide the hint of drop-down menu for more options.
MODIFY
COLOR
The check-in and, appointment information pages were merged as one to make the information more clearly presented.
Different colors are used on buttons that lead the path of creating appointment, checkingin and sign-up/sign-in to distinguish their functions.
INTERFACE
Sort/Filter Sort and filter function is added to manage the search results.
Information Doctors’ information display is reformatted for a better hierarchy.
Toggle User can toggle between creating appointment and checking-in directly on any page.
Modal The appointment making window is now a modal instead of the accordion format
MedTrack
A web service that enables the user to create doctor’s appointments, check-in on-line, and receive real-time update of their waiting time.
SEARCH Enter location, hospital, doctor or specific medical field SORT By reviews, availability, hospitals and departments
CREATE
After selecting a doctor, his/her information, details of the hospital, available date and time will show up.
CHECK-IN/CREATE Toggle to create or check-in appointment.
UPDATE The number of patients before your appointment, and the average wait time.
VIEW
TEXT/PHONE
Past and future appointments, as well as editing and canceling appointments. CHECK-IN On the day of the appointment.
Use can select different ways to receive updates to accommodate their needs.