This semester I joined MIT's chapter of Design For America!
What is it?
It's a network of student managed studios located in certain colleges throughout the nation! This year is MIT's first year doing DFA projects. Students in DFA work with each other to tackle social challenges with human centered design.
In other words, we make cool shit to help others. We learn new things, teach others what we know, and go way out of our comfort zones to attempt to solve challenges.
DFA Projects?
MIT has 4 teams this year, each comprised of 5-6 people. Each team picks a theme for its project. This is MIT's first year taking on projects. My team is Improving the Patient Experience.
So, what did you do?
The first thing we did was get to know our team members and leads!
From left to right: Me, Juan Angulo (Freshman), Malena Ohl (Project Lead, Junior), Wen Zen (Sophmore), and Ming Wang (Freshman)
An awesome group of people, I couldn't ask for a better team!
We did a lot of ideating, brainstorming problems, and heading to Brigham and Women's Hospital. We partnered with Brigham and Women's, and they let us take a tour of General Medicine and interview patients.
Stickynotes everywhere!!!
After weeks of brainstorming and shooting down MANY ideas we came up with three problems and solutions. We couldn't all agree on one idea, so we prototyped a few.
Short Summaries:
1. The Boo Boo Buddy
Head Designer: Malena Ohl
Problem: Young children have a hard time articulating where their pain is, and how much it hurts.
Solution: Boo Boo Buddy, a doll that children can use to tell others where there pain is, and how much it hurts!
By using color coded band aids and app tracking, children can place these fun bandaid/stickers on the doll's body, corresponding to where it hurts.
Here are some pictures from her presentation!
2. FIRST RESPONSE
Head Designer: Me!
First Response is a website/iphone application designed to answer emergency first response questions a user may ask in their first hour of an emergency. First Response is for those who are unfamiliar with what to do in a non-life threatening medical emergency, and is designed to help the user save time and money.
The Story:
One day my sister and her friend were visiting Hong Kong. Her friend suddenly began to feel unwell - he had food poisoning.
In an unfamiliar country and surroundings, my sister didn't know what to do.
- Did her friend need emergency care or urgent care?
- What was the difference between the two?
- Which hospitals accepted her friend's insurance if any?
- Who could she call in Hong Kong? How would she get to the hospital?
- Where was the nearest hospital?
After an hour of calling the insurance company and finding a hospital that DID support her friend's insurance, my sister took a taxi there, only to discover that the hospital didn't even have an emergency room! She was then forced to take her friend to another hospital, and then had to wait an additional 4 hours after the first hour of looking for a hospital.
And that really really really sucks. So I want to make sure others don't make those mistakes!
1. Why not just call an ambulance?
Yeah, that's what I'd do in any situation. If I didn't know better, and even if I wasn't suffering from life threatening situations, I would call 911 and get an ambulance.
A 15 minute ride on an ambulance can cost up to $2000. A taxi ride, much much less.
Use an ambulance if you have life-threatening injuries. If not, you can opt for a taxi or have a friend drive you to save money.
2. Can't I just Go to the EMergency room? What is urgent care?
Most people don't know the difference between emergency care and urgent care. In face, not many know that urgent care exists. Hint: The urgent care lines are super short in comparison to emergency care!
Urgent care is for non-life threatening medical emergencies such as minor broken bones, sprains, and much more. In fact, roughly 70% of the cases in the emergency room could have been treated by urgent care. Urgent care is faster, and cheaper:
So if you really don't need emergency are, go for urgent care! However definitely head to emergency care if you have even the slightest doubts. It's better to be safe. First Response provides facts. It's up to you to the make the final decision.
3. Ehhhhhh Insurance? What?
Believe it or not, even the emergency room costs money. It'd be nice if we lived in a place where we wouldn't have to worry about bills when our lives are in danger.
Unfortunately, emergency rooms can cost A LOT. It greatly reduces costs if the hospital you're at covers your insurance.
Better yet, insurance reduces the cost of urgent care waaaaaay more than emergency care. Look at the chart above!
First Response features
Originally I wanted to make an app. However at Design Critique (Design Critique is a presentation meeting where all the teams present ideas to professors and authority involved in the social challenges we try to tackle), a critic asked me why First Response deserved to be on his phone. Most people don't think that far ahead. How would we spread the information?
So I believe First Response should be a website that can be accessed from the phone. First Response can/has....
- Location Services to provide a list of hospitals nearby, and pertinent information on insurance, distance, and care.
- Filtered search results based on cost and/or time efficiency
- Average wait time estimate
- Online checkin to urgent or emergency care rooms
First Response is just a prototype, so some of these features may disappear or more may be added! In the end, however, it is just meant as a way to provide facts to people in medical emergencies who don't have to immediately go to the emergency room.
3. The Hub
Head Designer: Juan Angulo
Juan decided to listen to the ideas of a patient we interviewed. The patient complained of being unable to reach anything on his poorly designed table. Juan, who has much experience with wood working, took the lead on designing The Hub, an all-purpose bedside table that caters to the movements and reaches of almost any patient. Although I don't have any clear pictures of his table, I do have parts of his presentation and a short summary of its features. Juan worked with Wen and Ming to build the foam core and wooden prototype of the table.
- rotating face (like those rotating tables you see at restaurants)
- drawers that extend from the table like spokes. You can get a better idea in the gallery below.
- height adjustability
- charging stations
- translational mobility to for ease of moving the table around the hospital bed
Although The Hub is originally designed with patients in mind, it's a very flexible table more multiple purposes.
