Typically at the Technology Commercialization Office, I “see” inventions.  They come in the form of discussions, disclosures etc, its the norm of how things work.  I see, meet, eval, and then help do the dance toward will it go can it go into commercialization.

This weekend my father went into the Ross Heart Hospital, for some heart work.  As the good son, I helped bring my 86 year old mother along.  It was the first time that I would “experience” the inventions typically revealed to our office.  Over the past two years at TCO, we’ve seen dozens  of patient experience improving technologies.

Its one thing to see technologies written on paper from docs and researchers, its another thing to experience them.  Holding my mothers hand over the past few days and watching her and I deal with the anxiety of the experience, it makes an impact on ya.  No focus group can truly grab the experience like this.  No disclosure of an idea measures in comparison to the real moment of an idea, good or bad, as it unfolds in person.

My father is in great care.  He holds Ohio State as high as the whole of the Catholic Church.  As a professor here in Industrial Systems Engineering for over 40+ years, where he helped start and build the Human Factors program at Ohio State, and a volunteer communion deacon at the hospital for 10+ it seems upon his retirement, he’s roamed these hospital halls and shared his wisdom and compassion with hundreds.  Now in the bed, he’s patient and humble and we talk about little things, plants in the garden, dirt to move here and there around the yard and then, the researcher in him pops in and we talk about the various ideas and inventions and experiences we experienced here in our stay.

The Rockwell’s are a family of researchers.  We’re geeks thru and thru.  We talk about things like cognitive use models for dinner chatter, we chat about ergonomics for fun, and this past weekend the hospital, we chatted about what was working and what wasn’t working in user experience.

lets ramble into some specifics..

Parking, no big issue, course the last thing on your mind is parking cost.  Sure its five bucks but don’t care, I’ll pay anything.  When you have a loved one in pain the last thing you think about is the bits of reality that surround the now.  Nothing else matters.  This of course can benefit a providers bottom line in exploitation of that fact but overall I found OSU parking decent and expected.

Care karma.  Ohio State gives off a strong vibe of care and community.  The park, trees and grass out side the hospital lobby comforts me, it soothes my mother.  She did some tile work in the Spirit of Women park, this gives her a conversation to have, a memory to recall, we help step over the “what time, what procedure, whats going on with Dad” fester.  Inside the Ross, you see people going about, but the notions of care are front and center.  The piano in the lobby, the friendly people.

Wayfinding.  I’m used to Ohio State, but this was one of the first times navigating campus with a sense of urgency, a sense of where do I go, where do I take my mom, where do I stand, where do I get help, where, where, where.  Wayfinding and navigation in care facilities and hospitals is so critical.  A sign is the first great anxiety reliever, it beats a smile every time because you never know where you’ll find the smile.  But signs, they’re eternal, place them, over communicate I say.   Just a few weeks ago my mom was in Riverside- there the wayfinding is very yellowbrick road like, here at Ross, less markers let you know where to go, you basically have to experience them and then pray that everyone else looking to catch up to where you’re at can find their way.  Ross still has a ways to go in making navigation through out the care facility obvious, and it needs to be explicitly obvious.

Waiting room.  Now here is where we experienced one of the first inventions I’ve seen revealed to our office at TCO.  Essentially its a waiting room system that tracks where your loved one is and their status.  Its a basic listing display on a large LCD monitor, meant to help inform you and let you know the steps of a procedure.  The mission is to inform, clarity, and provide comfort.  It sort of worked but was hard to navigate.  4 columns are presented on a large display screen.. (your ticket #), (which part of the procedure the patient is in), (clock time), and (another clock time) – Ok so the problems here, first, the headings that tell you what these columns are are not visible so if you don’t figure things out you’re lost, as we were for the 20mins or so staring at the display.  Second problem is that your ticket number starts with a prefix of like 30 and then the following numbers relate to your patient, so we had 305741, but on a display that constantly changes the numbers aren’t in order, so you quickly get confused.  Next problem was the 2 last columns, the two numbers didn’t have any AM or PM markers and they were in military time so if you didn’t know they were times, you’d think room numbers.  For me I got that the system was beta, basic, but to watch my mom stare at this screen with intent and focus and anxiety on how to read it properly to understand where her husband was, well that sucked big time.  She kept her eyes on that flat panel display as if we were at the horse track watching our horse, go LUCKY!!  A few fixes on that system and it’d be alot better, sadly i don’t think it’d change the effect it had on my mom.  She’d still stare at that screen as if its the only thing between her and the status of her husband.  As for value/commercialization, its a good idea to implement, viability to take to market- thats mixed.  Depends on competition and how well it integrates into other systems and or does the system relate to any reporting for management etc.  Does it help the patient experience, a bit, more than the unknown but hard to say how it alleviated anxiety.

Fall Risk Wheel.  Once in the room I noticed the Fall Risk Wheel, this is a wheel that the nurse can turn to highlight varied fall risk indicators for the patient.  I told my Dad, “hey here’s an invention I saw at TCO…” we sat in the room and evaluate the idea.  “Dan.. I’m yellow… I’m no yeller!”  he retorted with a laugh.  Just seeing him laugh was a good sign to me.  Alert as always is good.  You’re a risk, I told him.  We chatted about the device, it did seem easier and more efficient to use than say the written word FALL RISK on a whiteboard in the room.  But it feels marketing, or signage, “not sure how you sell that Dan..” he said.  I think with research/study with nurses/docs that tool could be eval’d and then folded into a larger fall risk effort project, which I believe the university is doing.  On its own its a wheel, be it better than a marker on a whiteboard.  Over the time of my fathers stay he kept noticing it tho.  “Dan, i’m GREEN! GO!!!!” I later laughed and he did too.

Room Design.  Half way thru his stay he told me.. “Dan, Ross is not like other hospitals, these rooms are designed in such a way that you do the tests in them….”  The echocardiogram machine wheeled in.  The nurse turned off all the lights and began a test.  The sound of the echocardiogram is unnerving.  So the room works to do the test in the room, just not sure if family should be in the room during the test.  The swooping sound of the echocardiogram is creepy, its spooky.  The sound was unnerving but watching my mom react to the sound as if one of her boys had just gotten hit by a car or something was too hard to watch.  I desperately felt the need to do a mini quest with mom, “lets go find the coke machine, we need a coke or something..” anything to get us out of the room.  I probably read emotion off people too much, its part of the job I think, I’m always trying to read people, anticipate the “feeling” behind the eyes, the body language etc.  We didn’t leave the room, we endured the swooping.  I wished for headphones for the nurse.  I imagine Super Mario Brothers sound effects in my head, an option on the user experience that would allow the nurse to use some other less creepy sound.  I debated on whether or not the sound really mattered to hear it, I mean its on the screen right?  Soon it was over.  My father joked and said that system would be good for making bass musical instruments.. “I like that bass.. I have a good bass.”  Mom was relived it was over.  I was too. 

Empathy and conversation. “Well she was a no nonsense gal…” referring to the Echocardiogram nurse as she wheeled the machine out of the room.  “Dan, note empathy, a note of concern and care can make a world of difference..”  he was referring to the simple conversational notes caretakers can do to make a patient stay more bearable.  “Tell me about your family, your kids..” … change the- turn over to a – could you please turn over and thanks” that makes this experience more meaningful.  We all need more empathy.  Ross care givers were fantastic and they gave us a ton of empathy, but we always wanted more.  We wanted the experience to be over, how do you compete with that?  You can’t really.  You can only comfort and understand so much, and my father wanted understanding thru conversation, thru human exchange of talking and recognition.  He wanted to be seen, heard, noticed, cared for, understood, and then of course, not bothered with.  LOL  Humans!

 My father is home now and I feel relieved for him to be done and out in record time.  Hospital stays are shorter and shorter but when you’re there they feel eternal.  It was good to see and experience these inventions I see every day at work first hand.  I have a greater appreciation for the researchers and doctors that invent these things.  Its a wild time for health care.  You can feel and sense and I too eagerly hope to help continue the improvement and advancement of health care.  GREEN, GO!!!