Ideating Solutions: Learning from Patients
Welcome back! We are a-CUTE Wounds Warriors, a team from the Master’s of Human-Computer Interaction program at Carnegie Mellon University, partnering with University Hospitals of Cleveland to improve outcomes for at-home patient-administered wound care.
Speed Dating Methods 🧐
In light of the challenges we encountered with our initial survey, we recognized the importance of refining our research approach to better engage with patients. This led us to conducting virtual “speed dating” sessions with patients at the clinic. These sessions allowed us to quickly present and gather feedback from patients in the clinic on various ideas aimed at addressing their needs. Our goals for the speed dating session were:
- Uncover hidden needs that are directly relevant to patients
- Understand the acceptability and comfort level patients have with different solution approaches
- Refine and narrow our design focus and guiding principles based on their feedback
Pilot test
In preparation for the speed dating sessions, we organized pilot testing sessions with our faculty members, seeking professional suggestions to help us refine our research methods. We received a wealth of valuable feedback on our approach. Most importantly, we shifted from merely presenting scenarios to patients to actively asking about their real-life experiences. This change aimed to create stronger connections between potential solutions and their actual needs.
Talking to the patients: Virtual Speed dating 🗣
We finally had the opportunity to engage directly with patients and gained valuable insights from them 🙌 🙌 We conducted virtual speed dating sessions with a total of nine patients. In these sessions, each patient was presented with five different ideas with sketches. Following each presentation, we delved deeper with targeted interview questions, aiming to understand not only their reactions but also their comfort level and willingness to adopt these proposed solutions. This interactive approach not only fostered meaningful dialogue but also enriched our understanding of patient needs and preferences.
Identifying Key Insights 🧠
We consolidated insights from our patient interviews and reviewed all the findings from our previous research. One of our goals for this sprint was to pinpoint three to four key insights to focus on in future research and design phases. When synthesizing our insights, we tried to use language that’s easily understandable, even for those unfamiliar with our project, making the insights more accessible to a broader audience. Additionally, we aimed for a balanced perspective, considering the needs of both end-users: patients and healthcare providers, to ensure our insights were holistic. The four key insights we identified are as follows:
- Patients prefer talking directly to healthcare providers because they trust their expertise and appreciate their compassion.
- What makes at-home wound care challenging isn’t the heavy load of instructions, but rather handling unexpected situations.
- Patients need quick reassurance, but nurses can feel overwhelmed by the call volume, even though they are eager to help
- The current wound care procedure doesn’t feel personalized beyond the clinic.
Subsequently, we defined the new design opportunities that we could consider in the future with HMW statements:
How might we enhance their trust in wound-care materials, building on patients’ trust in healthcare providers?
How might we streamline the process for patients to quickly access crucial information?
How might we lighten nurses’ workload while ensuring quick reassurance to patients?
How might we tailor and adapt the wound-care experience to suit diverse situations? By keeping these questions in mind, we would be able to develop innovative solutions that the users need.
Developing Guiding Principles For Design 🎨
In the initial stages of developing our prototype, we established a set of guiding principles to steer our solution creation process. These principles serve as the foundation for building and evaluating our solutions to move forward. We have identified five key principles that are pivotal to our ideation process and will guide our future assessments:
- Reassuring: A human touch / Comfort and peace / Patient’s trust / Clear next steps are provided for guidance.
- Accessibility: Tech literacy / The minimal requirement for additional tech devices
- Clear & Concise: Easy-to-grasp / Well-categorized
- Personalized: Solutions adapt to varying situations.
- Immediate & Direct: Real-time responses / Doesn’t increase nurses’ workload / Addressing unexpected situations
Building upon our established guiding principles, we embarked on our initial ideas and storyboards to refine and enhance our solutions. Our objective was to see whether each concept aligned with our guiding principles, thereby optimizing its potential for success and effectiveness. To facilitate the process, we utilized a radar spider chart that enables us to assess each idea across various criteria within our principles.
The Path Forward🚶♀️
As we approach the end of this semester, our goal is to refine our ideas and begin creating prototypes and recommendations for our clients. Additionally, we plan to strengthen our findings and insights through additional research to develop comprehensive research reports and presentations for our clients by the end of April.
Stay tuned for the next update from the a-CUTE Wounds Warriors! #AWW #HealthCareInnovation #SprintRecap
*This project is not intended to contribute to generalizable knowledge and is not human subjects research.
