As people flow from their 'normal' stat to less typical states. Have drug doses and vital trackers adjust to temporary irregularities as needed. For example, being in surgery or pregnant is a temporary state that has drug ranges that you would not normally give someone.
Role: UX Designer
Project Duration: Summer 2023
Scope:
3-5 Interviews
(compliance lawyers and nurses)
Purpose: Use menu as a UX design tool to reduce alarm fatigue
(ex. build menus that adapt to environment needs)
Methods and Tools
Examples
epigenetics framework
Biochemistry: Dual Processing Model
Obstetrics Nursing Team
A lot of heath standards and ranges were determined with a very small section of the population. For example, the BMI calculations where based off of measurements of Scotsmen and doesn't work for a lot of people.
A really important shift that must be established for personalized treatments, is having homeostasis measured to the individual from the start, finding 'normal' to the individual over years of observation (like annual check-ups). Rather than comparing everyone to an arbitrary measurement of 'normal'.
This is a complicated environment and the most important functionality is that information is successfully communicated quickly.
The role of this design is to facilitate that by reserving drug alarms for catching fatal errors.
As alarm fatigue is more relived overtime with an accumulation of designs like this one. I see the role of tech support in healthcare becoming more passive in the process.
Eventually clinicians only noticing all the background support when they are deliberately interacting with tech.
Understanding Needs: I started off by meeting with different specialties in healthcare to inquirer current problems in the industry. I met with, compliance lawyers, patient safety specialist and nurses active in the field.
Interviews: I used discovery interviews. When I focused in on a topic I switched to a Cognitive Task Analysis interview to breakdown a specific process.
Analysis: I combined my notes and coded common patterns and themes in recorded interviews
Stakeholders: Obstetrics Team
Codes: alerts, rules, safety, practice, time pressure
This structure was inspired by the dual processing Model in cognitive psychology. That there is a 'system 1' for fast judgment and intuition and a 'system 2' for slow cognitively tasking thought and detail.
When the patient is in homeostasis have the 'system 1' equivalent default.
When a patient is in a special event like surgery or giving birth switch to 'system 2' equivalent. With drug dose ranges specialized to support a patient's return to their homeostasis.
A sample of an infusion screen for an in-patient with a special variation tag
High Value Contrast (left): when setting up the infusion, a nurse could tag the patient with special tags. For temporary events, like delivering a baby, or long-term tags like diabetes or cystic fibrosis.
Fast Visual Read (right): the specialty tags would have an inverted value contrast, allowing nurses to quickly scan patient status, from multiple distances
A sample breakdown of the infusion screen
Callouts: samples of tags: cystic fibrosis (65 roses), increase/decrease to homeostasis, pregnancy, heart conditions etc.
Interface Sample: showing how a patient in a pre-partum stage, could have special range for drugs related to delivery at that stage and a normal dose of fluids
