TimeLine

Helping remote healthcare providers gain a better understanding of patient context, connected to its evolution over time.

Umeå Institute of Design

Specialised Product Design

Healthcare

Experience Prototyping

Collaboration with Phillips Healthcare

Giving temporal and contextual awareness to tele-ICU nurses.

Context

How can we address the needs of tele-ICU nurses, while facilitating efficiency?

Timeline is a project developed as part of the Specialized Product course, in collaboration with Philips Healthcare. The project addresses challenges related to efficiency, communication, and contextual awareness in tele-ICU environments.

Research

Experiencing the Norrlands universitetssjukhus work flow.

During the field visit, we heard and observed real stories from the ICU, PostOp, and Pediatric nurses. With pages and pages of notes, we began by gathering these stories from notes and organizing them into patterns.

With their stories in mind, we created a full scale mock-up, fully embodying the main struggles of different ICU nurses.

…and there were certain moments that really stuck with us throughout the project.

Margot

... it’s difficult to notice especially if you’re seeing the patient for the first time. You don’t really know the before and afters so you need to communicate well with other nurses.

Margot

... it’s difficult to notice especially if you’re seeing the patient for the first time. You don’t really know the before and afters so you need to communicate well with other nurses.

Phillis

“... it takes experience to know what’s causing the alarm however it also depends on patients history.”

Phillis

“... it takes experience to know what’s causing the alarm however it also depends on patients history.”

Phillis

“... it takes experience to know what’s causing the alarm however it also depends on patients history.”

Anne

“When I’m getting a blood sample from a patient the alarms go crazy thinking the patient is dying. No, I’m trying to save them shut up!”

Anne

“When I’m getting a blood sample from a patient the alarms go crazy thinking the patient is dying. No, I’m trying to save them shut up!”

Margot

“We don’t see what’s wrong sometimes and some other nurse sees something with a different point of view, like a spark in the eye.”

Margot

“We don’t see what’s wrong sometimes and some other nurse sees something with a different point of view, like a spark in the eye.”

Making informed decisions according to our field visits and desk research.

The field visit provided valuable insights into the daily experiences of ICU nurses. Combined with our supplementary desk research on tele-ICU workflows, these insights informed the identification of key design interventions.

Inadequate Context

Patient Safety

Lack of Time-based insight

Increased risk of errors

Strain on Tele-health Nurses

Details

What aspects provide "context" to an ICU-nurse daily?

According to our insights, there are 4 main events that provide context to a nurse in the ICU.

Comments

Medical Events

Alarms

Spacial Activity

Hover to see more details

We want to organize this critical contextual information temporally, to help tele-ICU nurses better understand the relationship between clinical events.

Monitoring View for the Tele-Nurse

The tele-nurse interface consists of two screens: the left displays an overall monitoring view, while the right offers a detailed overview of an individual patient. This dual-screen setup allows tele-nurses to quickly navigate patient histories, identify trends, and make well-informed clinical decisions.

Patient Overall View

This screen offers a detailed 4-hour view, presenting compiled events alongside the patient’s clinical data. It features an intelligent hourly summary that highlights key occurrences within each time block. On the right side, a dedicated tab displays the patient’s general information, including recent movements, primary diagnosis, treatment summary, and upcoming care plans.

General Patient List View and AI Suggestions

Tele-ICU nurses must operate with greater speed and efficiency across multiple patients. To support this, our intervention introduces a structured log system that consolidates critical information. Additionally, we integrated an AI assistant that analyzes historical data and provides context-aware suggestions to assist in clinical decision-making when needed.

Related Events

Since most clinical events are interconnected, presenting them in context can help tele-ICU nurses form a more comprehensive understanding of the patient’s condition. For instance, when a suggestion is generated, selecting it will highlight the most recent related events on the adjacent screen. It is important to emphasize that these suggestions are intended to support—rather than replace—clinical judgment; the final decision always remains with the nurse.

Jumping to Events

Zooming in and out of the Timeline

Communication Feedback Loop

When an event occurs, both the tele-nurse and bedside nurse document the treatment provided, ensuring a shared understanding of the patient's history and reducing the risk of communication errors.

Behind the scenes

Making to Empathize: 1:1 scale mock-ups and roleplaying in the research phase.

Making as a tool of sensemaking in specialised use cases.

Designing for complex systems, such as telehealth workflows, requires a deep understanding of dynamic and evolving user contexts. However, limited field observations and the inherent complexity of these systems pose significant challenges to designers. Our efforts of making in this project helped us embody the complex workflow of a nurse.

Making to Explore: 1:1 mock ups to share ideas, further ideate and communicate between different group members.

3 different concepts we developed after the roleplays.

Making to Convince: Prototypes and concept video to presenting our core idea in a formal setting.

A brief reflection (:

Our project highlighted the critical need for thorough research and innovative design approaches to propose meaningful solutions. Despite the constraints of a tight timeframe and limited direct exposure, our use of 'making' tools allowed us to gain deeper insights, ideate effectively, and communicate our ideas compellingly.

This interactive and iterative design process not only facilitated a better understanding among team members but also enabled us to present a comprehensive and convincing proposition to our professional audience. Moving forward, the lessons learned from this project underscore the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in the evolving field of interaction design.