KP Nurse Rounding

Windows Surface Application

KP Nurse Rounding is a mobile app for the Windows Surface. The app enables nurse managers to capture the patient experience and address their needs as they arise to maintain quality care. The app was piloted at various Kaiser Permanente facilities in California.

My Role & Team

UX Designer

I led user research, ideation and user testing of the application. I created wireframes and early prototypes for testing on the hospital floor.

Product Team

I collaborated with a product manager, UX designer, visual designer and engineering team from conception to release of the first version of the KP Rounding application.

 
 

THE CHALLENGE

Capture Feedback at the Bedside

In hospitals, nurses visit each patient to collect feedback, a practice called “rounding.”  “Rounding” provides nurses the opportunity to address any raised issues or concerns regarding the patient’s hospital stay.  At Kaiser Permanente, nurses used a website survey form to capture feedback.

In order to understand current workflow and identity key design opportunities, I arranged and led user interviews and observations at KP inpatient units. We shadowed nurse managers and ancillary service managers as they visited each patient.  This research allowed us to identify usability issues with the web form as well as workflow problems between nursing staff and ancillary departments.

Constraints

Research, Design & Build in 8 weeks

We had 8 weeks to research, design and build a fully functional Windows tablet app. As a team, we broke down the timeline into 4 sprints - 1 sprint dedicated to exploration and research and 3 sprints dedicated to design and development.

Process

Research

Onsite Observations: We observed nurses as they went through their rounds and stopped by each patient room.

Stakeholder interviews: I interviewed clinical staff and staff at support departments to understand the challenges they have in tracking and responding to patient-identified issues.

Existing Tools: I examined the staff's current tools, including paper forms, web survey forms and the support staff's online management system.  

 
 

Design Iterations

Based on our research, I helped the team define the user stories for the clinical application. Since there were a wide range of possibilities, but limited time to develop for all of these user stories, I created wireframes and early prototypes for early user testing. The goal was to identify and prioritize the core user stories that provide the most value to our clinical staff.  

 
 

User Testing

I took these early prototypes, loaded them onto a Windows Surface device and brought them to the nurse managers on the hospital unit. The nurse managers used the prototype to achieve the user tasks that we identified in our research. 

 

Select User Testing Takeaways

#1 Involve questions targeted to families, as they speak up for the patient.

#2 Support ways for staff to update issues to share how they resolved the problem.

#3 Be able to view the conversation and progress between departments

 

KP Nurse Rounding

RESULT

As of 2013, KP Nurse Rounding was Kaiser Permanente’s first Windows mobile application. The app was piloted at a medical center and used by nurse managers and ancillary services managers.

 
 

Quickly move from a whole facility view to an individual patient room

The Windows 8 semantic zoom made it easy to navigate the different levels of detail, from a general facility wing to a specific patient bed. The views make use of color coding and iconography to quickly identify units and patient rooms that have outstanding issues, or patient rooms that have not been evaluated.

 
 

Easily capture patient feedback at the bedside

Nursing staff can easily take patient's input through a survey within the application. The larger form components and content helps staff enter feedback without interrupting the flow of conversation with the patient.

 
 

Manage and track service issues

Staff can enter service issues reported by the patient and triage them to the appropriate departments. Through a comment thread, ancillary service departments can provide real-time updates on their progress or ask questions with clinical staff in order to resolve the issue.