Lurie Children’s Hospital
Skills: Service Design, Stakeholder Research, Prototyping, Product Design
As a part of a six-month service design course at Northwestern’s Segal Institute of Design, my team worked for Lurie Children’s Hospital to combat “left-without-being-seen” rates in the emergency department waiting areas. Through a process of stakeholder interviews, prototyping and testing, my team developed an interactive activity guide to keep children entertained while waiting and engaged in their care process. Working alongside two other teams focused on different aspects of the waiting room experience, our studio was able to synthesize our work into a single integrated solution for the Lurie’s emergency department.
September 2023-March 2024
Our Solution
The Lurie Children’s Hospital Activity Guide is an interactive coloring booklet and progress tracker for children receiving healthcare in the Lurie emergency department. Inspired by passports and children’s magazine Highlights, the booklet contains coloring pages and activities for children to complete while waiting, along with a page to collect signatures throughout their care process. After completing triage, their examination and checkout, patients can show their completed booklet to a discharge nurse to receive a small price, incentivizing children and their guardians to stay for the duration of their care. Narrated by the friendly Otto the Octopus character, children are given a short explanation of what to expect during their visit and how to use the booklet. Parents can also scan a QR code on the back of the booklet to access a short video where Otto explains the booklet process, as well as a parent’s information resource
Research
From our interviews with patients and Lurie’s staff nurses, we learned that children often don’t understand why they’re waiting so long in the ER. While parents can do their best to explain, they often don’t have clarity about the process either and can feel unengaged in their child’s care and overwhelmed having to entertain a sick child. We also learned that the busiest times in the emergency department often coincide with key points in a child’s routine, such as school drop off, dinner time and bedtime. Uprooting the structure children have in their routines can be scary, so we looked for a solution that could provide patients with actions and tasks during what can feel like aimless waiting periods.
Prototyping & Testing
Over the course of six months, we went through several rounds of prototyping. Some early versions of our solution included interactive apps, video storyboards, and character and theme developments.
To test our prototypes, we worked with our studio teammates, Lurie’s staff, patients and two eager seven year olds. Through a process of AB testing, interviews and roleplay, we refined our solutions and gained valuable insights into how different stakeholders would be impacted by this service. We learned that children were excited about coloring pages but didn’t like activities with lots of words, like word searches or crossword puzzles. Nurses were also excited for the opportunity to quickly establish a rapport with the patients when signing their books, as well as gauge a child’s sickness level by how engaged they are with the booklet.
