HealthScape

Enhancing patient experience

EXploring

INteractions
Research & Design Explorations
ARATRIKA ROY 4237811 Coaches Margreet Beets Mark van Huystee In cooperation with Reinier de Graaf Hospital BIOMET Date January 24, 2013

CONTENTS
Introduction 3 Keywords..3 Design Goal.3 Interaction Vision3 Summary: Cycle 13 Summary: Cycle 24 Concept Generation..5 Concept Selection6 Interaction Prototyping..7 Cycle 3: Concept Development8 Prototype Testing.11 Final Design..12 Conclusion.12 References.14

Introduction
In the first two cycles, the design goal and interaction vision were formulated, observation, interviews and literature review were carried out. Based on the research results, the design goal and interaction vision were slightly modified, multiple concepts were generated and the concept that fitted to the design goal and qualities the most was chosen. The qualities of the chosen concept were tested in order to gain better insights into the interactions involved. In the third cycle, the finalised concept was further developed and elaborated. It was tested with the target users and based on their feedback and suggestions the design was modified to present the final design.

Keywords
Information, sharing, experience, confidence, satisfaction

Design Goal
This project aims to improve the quality of patient experience by helping patients prepare themselves physically, mentally and emotionally for a joint replacement surgery.

Interaction Vision
Providing patients a platform to share and learn from one anothers experiences and receive information in a friendly, interesting and trustworthy manner in order to help them gain the confidence and satisfaction needed for a better patient experience.

Summary: Cycle 1
In Cycle 1, i.e. Ideate phase, I formulated the first version of my design goal and interaction vision, i.e. the qualities I wanted to achieve through my design. The design goal I had set was: To create a friendly, comfortable and stress free solution to help patients prepare themselves physically, mentally and emotionally for a joint replacement surgery.

I wanted to achieve it with the help of the following qualities: Letting the patients have access to adequate information regarding the ailment, surgery and recovery in an interesting and user-friendly manner in order to induce a stress free and relaxed mental state to help them gain the confidence and trust needed for the procedure. I selected my target user group - patients having joint replacement surgery. I focused on designing for providing mental and emotional support to patients, in order to reduce their stress and anxiety in the pre-surgery phase. From my observation and interviews with the hospital staff (doctors, physiotherapists and orthopaedic consultant) and patients, I found out that the way the patients were provided information prior to the surgery is uninteresting, dull and boring. Research Conclusions from Cycle 1: - The information provided to patients before surgery is very uninteresting, dull, boring and drab. - Little attention is given to the mental and emotional state of patients undergoing surgery. - Patients have a hard time envisaging their overall recovery process. - Patients who are well informed are satisfied, feel more confident to go through the surgery and recovery procedure.

Based on these research conclusions, I aimed at providing patients adequate information about their conditions, surgery and recovery in a friendly, comfortable and relaxed manner in order to reduce their pre-surgery stress and help them gain confidence and trust. The concept directions I explored were providing information to patients in an interactive and friendly way. Fig. 1 and 2 demonstrate the direction of the initial ideas generated.

Interactive Interface for patients to explore all the information , get questions answered

Explanation of all procedures with illustrations , not a lot of text

Fig.1. Interactive Interface for providing patients information

Fig.2. Storyboard Information Booklet

Summary: Cycle 2
In Cycle 2, i.e. Iterate Phase, I did some more interviews with patients and some literature review. I focused on achieving the qualities confidence and satisfaction of patients. I found out from the interviews with patients that they felt more confident and ready for surgery if they were well informed and satisfied. Literature review also revealed that Patients who are satisfied heal faster.

I tried to look into the various kinds of interactions that play an important role in gaining the patients confidence and trust and satisfy them. I found out that in most cases, the patients consulted their friends or relatives who had had similar conditions and surgeries, and tended to rely on those experiences that they shared. Therefore, experiences shared by other patients were trusted and valued. This was perhaps the most important finding of my research, since afterwards my final design was largely based on this finding. I also tried to think about how I can design a product/service that will elicit these positive emotions in a patients mind for a speedy recovery. Research revealed a few sources of how design can influence emotions of users: - Object Focus: The object makes the user feel positive through its appearance. - Interaction Focus: The interaction the product provokes makes the user feel positive. - Activity Focus: The activity associated with the product makes the user feel positive. - Self Focus: Using the product makes the user feel positive about himself/herself. - Other Focus: Someone else makes the user feel good through the product. Research also stresses on the fact that the interaction a product provokes is the main factor that can elicit positive emotions in the users mind (Desmet, 2011 & Desmet, 2012). Therefore, combining elements from all these sources of focus and the interactions that provoke positive emotions, I generated multiple concepts regarding different ways of providing information to patients.

Concept Generation
I generated multiple ideas regarding different ways of sharing information, like interactive interfaces, social networking, experience-sharing wall and storyboard illustrations. The concepts generated were: 1. Interactive Interface for patients to explore all the information regarding joint replacement surgery.

Fig.3. Concept 1 2. Social Networking Platform for Patients

Fig.4. Concept 2

3. Patients Monitoring Wall

Fig.5. Concept 3 4. Storyboard Information booklet

Fig.6. Concept 4

Concept Selection
In order to select the best concept, I performed the Harris Profile with the qualities of these four concepts. The concept of Social Networking Platform for patients (Concept 2) was chosen as it seemed to fit the design goal and the interaction qualities.

Harris Profile
Concept 1 -2 Friendly Interactive Stress-free Informative Userfriendly Interesting Relaxing Confidence Trustworthy Satisfactory -1 +1 +2 -2 Concept 2 -1 +1 +2 -2 Concept 3 -1 +1 +2 -2 Concept 4 -1 +1 +2

Interaction Prototyping
I tested the interaction qualities of the chosen concept to find out how patients shared information and benefitted from it on a common platform. It was tested in a group of four participants. They were asked to share information on their experiences of jaundice, or viral hepatitis. Three of the participants had already suffered from the disease in the past, while the fourth one had not. The three participants were asked to share bits and pieces of important information like the age when they had the disease, symptoms, diagnosis, recovery and other experiences that they would like to share. The fourth participant was asked to absorb any new information that she could from the Interaction Prototyping Board. The testing led to interesting results (Fig. 7 and 8). The first participant mentioned that his only positive experience during his recovery was that he utilised the time to read a lot of books, which he otherwise cannot, due to his heavy schedule. The fourth participant took this experience as a valuable one which, she thought, would add some positivity to 7

the illness. There was another aspect of the disease which she was completely unaware of before this interaction session.

Fig. 7. Three participants sharing experiences of Jaundice

Fig. 8. Fourth participant absorbing information from others experiences

Cycle 3: Concept Development

In Cycle 3, i.e. Demonstrate Phase, after the selection of the final concept and interaction prototyping, I developed the concept of social networking of patients into a more elaborate design of a health data-sharing website. I created scenarios/storyboards to understand the interactions better and further develop them. I included various features like maintaining a patient timeline, finding successful treatment options, etc. besides sharing experiences and information among patients. I named my design HealthScape. It is a health data-sharing platform that is intended to transform the way patients manage their own conditions and enhance the overall patient experience. Fig.9 portrays the basic layout of the homepage. HealthScape aims to help patients feel confident, happy and satisfied by providing a better and more effective way to share their real-world health experiences and learn from others experiences in order to help themselves and other patients like them who suffer from similar conditions. Fig. 10 shows the services offered.

Fig.9. Homepage of HealthScape

Fig 10. Services or Features provided by HeathScape

The website provides the following services: Q&A Forum - for asking and answering health-related questions.

Fig. 11. Q&A Forum

Meeting people for meeting other patients having similar conditions and reading their stories and experiences in details.

Fig. 12. Meeting People

Discover your options- for discovering the best options for successful treatment, like doctors, hospitals, etc, suggested by patients, hospitals and organizations.

Fig.13. Discover your options

Patient Timeline for maintaining a patient timeline to draw ones own recovery graph and track ones progress and recovery.

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Fig. 14. Patient Timeline

Appointment reminder for storing appointment date and time and getting reminder emails before the appointment.

Fig. 15. Appointment Reminder

Experience Matters - for learning from inspiring experiences shared by others and motivating others by sharing ones positive experiences.

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Fig. 16. Experience Matters

Prototype Testing
Evaluation Study I tested the final prototype with a few patients. Following are the main feedback and suggestions resulting from testing the prototype with users. - Patients feel that it would be nice to get in touch with patients from all over the country, and maybe other countries as well. - The invitation for joining HealthScape should come from the General Practitioner they consult. - Exchange of information and experiences is likely to work in a positive way. - There should be options for choosing language (Dutch or English) on the website. - Patients feel that the patient timeline would be particularly helpful because they often forget how bad it was in the beginning and worry too much if the recovery is slow. They can look back at the timeline and see that they have actually been progressing. - Patients should be given ratings based on answering questions and sharing experiences and information. - Introduction of a feature for reminding appointments in the timeline. - Involving hospitals and a moderator in the question/answer forum. - Introducing a list of rules on the website. - Link the website to all hospitals. - Enable members to invite friends - Help function - Introducing some information about BIOMET on the website.

Final Design
Based on the feedback and suggestions of the users, I modified my design a little bit. I included an appointment reminder and language options in my final design. Fig. 17 shows the services offered in the final design.

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Fig.17. Services Offered Final Design

Conclusion
In my opinion, the final design concept fits in with my design goal and interaction vision. According to my design goal, it should improve the quality of patient experience by helping patients prepare themselves physically, mentally and emotionally for a joint replacement surgery. It does achieve the goal by means of the platform to share and learn from one anothers knowledge and experiences in a friendly, interesting and trustworthy manner. The knowledge thus gained would help them be confident and thus satisfied leading to a better patient experience. Even though the primary concern of the website is sharing information and experiences among patients, I feel the patient timeline feature somehow seems to overshadow it a little, since some of the users found this feature to be the most interesting one in the design.

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References
[1] Desmet, P.M.A. (2012). Faces of product pleasure: 25 positive emotions in human product interactions. International journal of design 6(2), 1-29. [2] Desmet, P.M.A. (2011). Design for Happiness; four ingredients for designing meaningful activities. In: N.F.M. Roozenburg & P.J. Stappers (Eds.), Proceedings of the IASDR2011, the fourth world conference on design research, Oct 31-Nov 4, 2011, Delft, The Netherlands.

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