Zebra
Technologies
Medical equipment is one of the essential parts of efficient patient care. Finding medical equipment quickly is a struggle for nurses that do not have an effective tracking system. Our mission is to navigate these issues and design a tracking system to help nurses find equipment more quickly. The system also must inform nurses of equipment status. This could mean knowing if the equipment is being used by someone else, being cleaned, or being repaired.
Tools
Figma
Year
2023
Client
Zebra Technologies
How can we advocate for nurse practitioners and hospital staff to provide an effective method for tracking the location, maintenance, and availability of their equipment?
Problem Statement
After talking with our sponsor we discussed that our three final deliverables will include
A new virtual tracking system
A user journey map
Project Documentation
Our users consist of hospital staff who care for the patients. Our primary users are nurses.
User Group
Project Deliverables
Final Designs
The goal of our final designs were to create a seamless and simple way for the nurses to know exactly where equipment was located. We wanted our solution to add as little extra work as possible to the already busy hospital staff.
The Process
Our research goal was to gain a better understanding of current methods for tracking equipment within hospitals and how they communicate with each other. We did this by conducting interviews with nurses and completing secondary research.
Research Methods
Primary Research
- I interviewed a travel nurse and a registered nurse
- They both had different experiences with equipment going missing, whether that was hoarding, inability to track, etc.
- They both said communication within the hospital was typically by word of mouth.
Secondary Research
- Communication is difficult and varies throughout different hospitals
- Storage rooms are typically very unorganized, causing nurses to have trouble locating equipment
- Timing is a major factor in knowing when and where you need certain equipment
- Hospital staff spend a large majority of their shift looking for equipment.
Our team divided up all hospital equipment into seven different categories in order to learn more about each type so we could narrow our scope. The team ultimately decided to focus on hospital-wide equipment, as our research showed it would be the most useful type of equipment to track.
Equipment Mapping
Ideation: Sketching
Our team started our preliminary ideation phase with sketching.
Sketch of Equipment Floor Availability :
Nurses are able to search for their desired equipment and locate if what they need is available on each floor
Sketch of Live Equipment Map:
Nurses are able to track the live location of moving and still equipment through a map. They are able to see what nurse is using it at the moment and communicate with them through talk/text and request the equipment status
After sketching, our team moved into creating prototypes.
Ideation: Prototyping
Home Screen (mid-fi) :
At the top of the home screen, there is a profile of the nurse using the application. Next is a direct search box, were nurses can easily search the equipment. The bottom section shows the floor where the nurse is located, shows if storage is available, and shows the corresponding live map. The bottom is information about other floors that can be clicked on to lead to more screens.
Equipment Map (mid-fi) :
On this screen, it shows a live map of where the equipment is located. There is a search box still at the top for nurses to easily search more devices. More details, such as location and contact information of the last nurse who used the equipment are provided at the bottom. The map also shows the idle time of the device and how long it has been since last use.
Storage Room Information (mid-fi) :
This screen is for nurses to view the stock of the storage room. It includes a search box to help nurses quickly find the corresponding equipment. More details of where the device is located is at the bottom.
Areas for Improvement :
After concept testing with with our interviewees and sponsor, we discovered a few pain points in which we needed to iterate and improve upon when going into our final designs. These included personalized screens for users, direct messaging, pin points for items, and locations of storage rooms.
Reflection
This project was very interesting to me because I had never done a health-care related project. This was the heaviest research project I have done thus far and I learned a lot. My team was not familiar with how equipment was dealt with in the hospital, therefore causing us to have to complete many interviews and secondary research. I loved designing for a space that can directly help others and make nurse's jobs more efficient. I am so appreciative of Zebra Technologies for allowing us to complete such an interesring project.