The Wearable Journey: Process Book Alan Liu Delaney Lundquist Alana Rosenberg
We were posed with the question... How do you get patients with limited transportation access to their medical visits reliabily?
Personal Interviews Experience Mapping INSIGHTS 1. The solution needs to work for the social worker as much as the patient. 2. Change the process to change the attitude. 3. Human interaction is crucial to the patient s mental and physical health. To begin addressing the issue of transportation in healthcare, we needed to understand the real world problems that our users face. To do so, we collected data through personal interviews with various social workers and patients at Barnes- Jewish Hospital and narrowed down the problem to three specific insights. From our compiled interview data, we created an experience map to track the user s overall experience with finding transportation, including their actions, feelings, and concerns.
Gaming & Social Media Research Next, we did an excercise that focused on the aspects of gaming and social media to see what attributes could be applied to transportation. Attributes that we decided to look further on included checkpoints, easy to learn, and goal oriented. We began our primary research by turning to existing trends in technology and social systems that included these attributes, as well as other attributes that could potentially be used for a viable solution.
Research Ideation 1. Firefly phone for patients Location based applications Transportation networks Tinder for carpool Firefly phone Uber Communication devices Social work student volunteer program Wearable technologies Nike Fuel band Call-A-Ride After spliting our data into 4 distinct groups, we began to generate ideas stemming from these groups. Each patient who needs regularly scheduled rides to the hospital recieves a limited function phone that is tied to their personal information account at the hospital - this way, usage of ride service can be tracked for insurance reasons. The phone is programmed with the numbers of their social worker and the choosen cab or ride service, as well as basic text messages to notify social worker of my status. It could be a component of a ride service that is dedicated to the hospital and this specific patient situation. Insight: A majority of social workers time is spent on the phone coordinating rides. If the patient has simple tools to schedule their own ride, they feel empowered and the social worker s time can be spent elsewhere.
Ideation Ideation 2. Tracking and Alert Wristband 3. Ride Mapping Computer Program An unobstrusive wrist band that can light up, vibrate, or have a small digital read out to remind patients: a) to schedule a ride to the hospital b) that their scheduled ride time is soon c) of their appointment a day prior and: d) send a their location to their social so they can track them in route e) checks vital signs of the patient. Insight: During Alana s interview, the patient never arrived even though it had been confirmed they had been picked up by Call-A-Ride. The social worker had called and checked they left their home, but couldn t figure out after that point where they were in route to the hospital or when they could be expected to arrive. Redesign the currenty Call-A-Ride scheduling system to be based off of patient s locations rather than on a firstcome first-serve basis. The Call-A-Ride van would make the most efficient route rather than the one that currently just adds patients to be picked up to the list and makes circuitous trips. Insight: Patients are sometimes late for appointments or have to wait longer than anticipated to be picked up from the hospital because the Call-A-Ride van has to make ineffcient routes due to the way the information is input in the system.
Ideation Ideation 4. Social Work School Volunteer Network 5. Tinder for Carpool Brown School of Social Work students volunteer rides for patients to the hospital in exchange for job shadowing during the appointment. Students can pick up the patient, take them to their appointment, and while waiting to drop them off back at home, can job shadow the social workers at the hospital. Students get exposure to the field and patients get to the hospital. Both get positive social interaction. Insight: Patients lack social interaction, and a volunteer system addresses funding concerns. People who are capable of driving to the hospital and do so regularly have a device loaded with an app that shows where people who also need to go to the hospital are located nearby. They can pick-up and carpool with the patients they see nearby. Insight: Patients like helping other patients, and builds comraderie. Volunteer basis is costconscious. Location based ride system is efficient.
Ideation Ideation COMPLEX Tinder for carpool Firefly phone Wristband SIMPLE To organize our ideas, we then categorized them by their simplicity/complexity in use and whether they were to be used by the social worker or the patient. Our wristband and firefly phone idea had the aspects we wanted for our solution. By having the main user being the patient, time was freed for the social worker. By being simple to use, the wristband/firefly phone became more accessible and effective.
Research Iteration Vitals Tracker and Wristband Reminder and Phone System Pebble Smartwatch Metria Wearable Sensor IntelligentM Wristband + + A sensor that monitors your vital signs and sends them to the hospital Limited function phone to call social worker and cab company A wristband that alerts user to unusual levels Wristband reminder and location tracker BodyMedia Wristband RFID Implant Sensor Wristband Cab Communicator From there, we decided to do more secondary research in wearable technologies that could communicate with the functionalities of a phone. In our research, we discovered a whole new area of medical technologies that were capable of taking vitals such as heartbeats, breaths per minute, blood pressure, etc. + Vibration reminders Sends SMS messages to cab company Focusing on the wearable route, we came up with 3 iterations of wearable technologies that could be used towards our solution.
Refocusing Refocusing Are we actually getting anyone to the hospital? Are we removing the one aspect the patients enjoyed about the process? (Human interaction) Are we working beyond the realm of modern technological capabilities? After making an experience map for a user interacting with our 3 wearable technologies, we found that our solutions weren t solving the issue at hand of actually getting the patient to the hospital. We had strayed too far from our original insights and needed to backtrack. We realized that although wearable technologies had potential to be a effective transportation tools in the future, it wasn t currently a viable solution.
Refocusing Research Reframing the problem Revisiting existing trends Right now, wearable technologies have many limitations on actually bringing the patient to recieve care. Instead, we reframed the problem: what if we brought the care to the patient? In response, we went back to researching the possible ways that care could be brought to patients, and looked at existing models of mobile care as well as healthcare models in developing countries. With our new research, we used existing models and applied them in the context of mobile healthcare transportation in the local community. However, we also took our existing research in wearable technologies and integrated the ways we can use wearable technologies to enhance our models in the future.
Iteration Iteration Model 1 Community health worker TODAY Model 1 Community health worker TOMORROW A trained health worker from the community goes out to patient s homes to deliver basic level care. In the future, the community health worker can be equipped with a digital toolkit to give a database of medical knowledge to enhance the quality of care.
Iteration Iteration Model 2 Modern day house-call TODAY Model 2 Modern day house-call TOMORROW A medical professional from the hospital delivers care directly to patient s homes. Provides a higher level of care. In the future, patients would be equipped with wearable sensors to take basic vitals. This information is sent to the medical professional for faster and more efficient response times.
Iteration Iteration Model 3 Traveling health-mobile TODAY Model 3 Traveling health-mobile TOMORROW A van outfitted with equipment for basic checkups is sent to communities that patients live in. Patients have closer access to care. In the future, patients are given smart watches to track the location of the health-mobile, allowing them to see where and when the mobile will be.
Conclusion Wearables offer a solution in the future. Reframe the idea of medicine as something that comes to the patient, instead of something the patient travels to. Down the road, work to combine the intuitive and efficient qualities of wearable technology with personal interaction.