Background

GOAL: HELP CHOP CARDIOLOGY.

We were tasked by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's (CHOP) Quality and Health Analytics department to resolve wayfinding issues for the CHOP Cardiology (study of the heart) department after their move from the CHOP Main building to the brand new CHOP Buerger building. Due to this transition, staff had to relearn important locations such as equipment rooms, testing areas, and staff workspaces. These "moments of learning" quickly turned into time wasted trying to find the right location, and these delays directly impacted patient wait times.

Research Phase 1

GOAL: IDENTIFY ISSUES.

Over the span of two weeks, the team observed staff and patients in the cardiology department. We specifically focused on the flow of people as well as the moments of confusion, such as when someone would stop to ask for help in looking for something. Additionally, we interviewed at least one members from each team and specialty within the department. From this, we identified 6 major reoccurring issues:

Insight: Speaking with every team and specialty within the department was extremely insightful, as we were given the opportunity to see different perspectives on singular issues.

Problem Identification

GOAL: NARROW AND VERIFY THE PROBLEM.

The Cardiology department sees up to 80 patients a day. 80 patients may not seem much, but when you take into consideration that a single cardiology test/exam may take more than an hour to complete and that a single patient may have to complete multiple tests, you soon realize that 80 patients is a momentous task to see within a normal workday. With medical personnel overworked and understaffed, short delays are major issues and with hour+ long exams for 80 patients, each delay significantly adds up. Below are some of the issues we identified.

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PROBLEM STATEMENT

GOAL: FIGURE OUT HOW TO WORD OUR BIG PROBLEM.

After an extended discussion of how we can condense and categorize our multitude of problems, we came up with a 2 pronged "How Might We" statements.

IDEATION

GOAL: LET THE IDEAS FLOW!

These were our initial ideas.

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CLIENT INPUT

GOAL: SEE WHAT'S FEASIBLE

We discussed at length with our clients on our ideas and decided to focus on the waiting area themes, hallway indicators, and check-out signage. Additionally they suggested us look into patient tracking, which we dug into during our next few observation sessions. Afterwards, we came up with an updated "How Might We?":

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PROTYPING, TESTING, & CLIENT FEEDBACK

GOAL: EVOLVING OUR IDEAS!

After speaking with our clients, we began to flesh out our ideas and actually fully prototyped our short term solutions of the hallway signs, check-out signs, and waiting area themes. We implemented these solutions for an entire week at the Cardiology department and afterwards interviewed users to gather feedback.

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Insight: Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest. Because of this, we had the opportunity to quickly prototype compared to other teams. We also left our prototype up for an entire week, continuously collecting feedback which was invaluable.