Streamlining NICU patient updates with the digital mirror system that enhanced the accuracy and efficiency
Project Subject
The NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) is dedicated to the care of newborn babies, where patient health records are stored in an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. This system enables seamless access and updates by multiple teams of doctors and nurses, ensuring comprehensive and coordinated care
Challenge
EHR system is more like a billing system, so NICU team members struggle to track the patients updates, they can only save patient history in EHR system and are writing other updates on paper
Solution
Developed an accurate, efficient and digital
system which is called smart mirror which includes options of viewing patient’s health updates on daily basis like allergies, sleeping schedule, feeding details, upcoming appointment, and lab tests.
Design Methods
User research: user interviews, surveys, persona mapping, swot analysis
Ux design: user flows, ideating solutions, sketches, wireframing.
Team
Solo Project
Tools
Figma | Mural | Miro
Problem: EHR Limitations and Overwhelming Workloads Impacting Neonatal Care
According to the National Library of Medicine, Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in NICUs enhance clinician communication but lack key features like sharing lab results and medication lists, disrupting workflow and burdening staff.
Apart from EHRs, NICU staff must also manage medical equipment, observations, assessments, and patient charts, leading to increased workload and delayed reporting of patient well-being.
Apart from EHRs, NICU staff must also manage medical equipment, observations, assessments, and patient charts, leading to increased workload and delayed reporting of patient well-being.
- Empathize
Conducting research to better understand the NICU space
To better undertand the clinicians problems, and challenges, I visited the NICU department to explore how they deliver patient, fed them and take care of them. Along with that conducted secondary research to get the better idea of which problems clinicians are facing and which things are making their experience better.
From Qualitative Research, interviews, and visits, I found out these insights
Communication Barriers
Clinicians face challenges in communicating with other staff members of different shifts and giving them updates about critical cases.
Limited EHR use
The EHR system in the NICU is primarily used for billing and storing patient history, not for maintaining comprehensive health records.
Monitoring Complexity
Clinicians use various software systems for communication, different devices for health monitoring, and sometimes rely on paper to save records, making the process overwhelming and complicating workflow.
Care and Support
The process of managing patient care while simultaneously providing emotional support to parents along with busy schedules and workload is particularly challenging for clinicians.
Clinicians Insights and Needs
Headlines connecting the persona story
- Define
Using Research Insights to Uncover Issues
Everyone Should Access to Data
Clinicians face problems of coordination with shift changes, busy schedules, workload, that can leads to delay in patient’s treatment
Enhanced System Integeration
Research reveals that, Clinicians struggle with complex system of EHR and relay on large data set to take the decision and can not save patient records except history
Unified Systems Needed
Using Multiple devices for different tasks in busy routine is difficult and hard to keep updated all clinicians about patient’s health
Manage Care and Support
Clinicians reported that addressing different needs along with patients care, giving emotional support to parents is hard within limited time.
- Brainstorm
Unleashing Idea Storms
Prioritizing these goals, we brainstormed simple, easy-to-implement solutions suitable for a time-limited, non-profit project. We focused on features that are easy to remember and navigate, and came up with several options.
- Digital Screen which can be used to see lab tests reports, and save it for future
- Check patients nutrition type, time, and method
- Option to check their body temperature, oxygen level, and blood pressure
- To track their sleep schedule per day
- Every clinician should login with ID to see details of every patient
- parents should receive updates about their child
Flowchart
- Ideating
Sketching the Solution
- High fidelity Prototyping
Finalizing on Design Solutions
Challenge 1
Communication and Coordination Challenges
Communication challenges with shift change clinicians along with busy schedule gets difficult, to keep all staff updated about patient health
Feature
Build a display to show all patient room numbers and their ID’s to access it easily by every clinician to see patient’s health updates.
Challenge 2
Limitations in EHR System
Limited EHR system with complex interface and clinicians struggle to save patient records, this system mainly used for billing and patient history
Feature
All in one software ( digital mirror), easy to access, includes option of feeding details, sleep schedule, lab test reports, allergies, and upcoming appointment
Challenge 3 and 4
Monitoring Different Devices to track patient’s health and provide support to parents
Using multiple devices to track the patients health, and to communicate with other staff is overwhelming, and at same time providing emotional support to parents is not easy
To reduce the frustration of multiple devices, I have tried to include most necessary features together, which will help clinicians to access it quickly and created an option to share necessary updates with parents, so that they can be updated about their child’s health and take less stress
Feature 1
Feeding Schedule of patient tells about
- which type of nutrition is being fed by which method
- Send a reminder to clinicians at feeding time
- Growth chart to see patients weight
- Pre and post instructions for clinicians
- Feature to share growth weight with parents or any other staff
Feature 2
Sleep Schedule of patient reports about
- Total hours of sleep
- Total awake time
- Total Hours of Deep sleep
Feature 3
Patient’s Upcoming Appointment Reports about
- Send a reminder to clinician about appointment
- Display its location and date
- Specifies the type of appointment and the attending doctor
- Share this appointment details with parents to keep them updated
Feature 4
Patient’s Allergies Reports about
- Displays all allergies impacting the patient’s health informs clinicians to ensure awareness and maintain a clean environment with appropriate disinfectants
Feature 5
Patient’s Lab Test Reports
- All lab reports through which patient have been through, their results got uploaded here and clinicians can access easily, download them to save.
Extracting Insights
Streamlining Documentation
Recognized the impact of documentation overload on healthcare professionals and Automated data entry to reduce manual workload and potential errors
User-Centered Design
Understand the specific needs of NICU staff and parents, designed intuitive interfaces that accommodate stress and time constraints.
Empathy and Emotional Support
Recognized he emotional needs of parents and providing a comforting and informative tool and Enhanced the overall experience for families during a stressful time.