Just last month, Collette Health hosted an incredibly informative webinar with Paul Rouillard, Director of User Experience at Collette Health. This webinar went over how Collette Health’s thoughtful design improves both patient safety and sitter satisfaction.
What is UX?
With the swarm of new technology over the years, processes have become more complex. User experience (UX) design is a growing popular phrase, but it can be confusing for those that are not in the design industry. So, what does it mean?
User experience is how a person feels when interacting with a system of any kind. (Source: UX Planet) In our case, that system is our patient observation software. Those who work on UX (called UX designers) study and evaluate how users feel about a system, looking at things such as ease of use, perception of the value of the system, utility, efficiency in performing tasks, and so forth. (Source: Smashing Magazine)
So, why is this important for Collette Health? Collette Health was designed for clinicians by a dedicated development team that worked in close proximity with RNs and CCRNs. We wanted to create—and want to continually improve—our system for the observers. Things like large screen sizes, how easy it is to sound an alarm, night vision, and so much more, are just a few aspects we’ve looked into, to make a great user experience for our sitters. Let’s take a look, more specifically, at the Collette Health UX Difference.
Collette Health UX Difference
32-Inch Monitor
Fatigue is all too common when it comes to computers, and in particular, with patient sitters. In research of our sitters, we noticed that when a monitor larger than 32- inches was in front of them, sitters had to push back in their chair and kick their head back in order to take in the entire monitor. This information told us that bigger is not always better; we did not want to go with a bigger monitor just to “check a box” so to speak. If a sitter is constantly moving their head back and forth to see the entire screen, that will cause more fatigue.
Every Collette Health observer is interacting with the software on a 32-inch monitor. We specifically use that size to maximize central and peripheral vision. 32-inches falls into a persons’ peripheral viewing area, allowing one sitter to take in the entire screen at once, edge-to-edge. Within the software we have two different patient viewing panels: a larger video window called the interaction zone and ten smaller video windows called the monitoring zone.
The interaction zone is meant for central vision, and the observer gets to select which patient is in the interaction zone at any given time. While a patient is in the interaction zone, the observer can unmute their microphone to communicate with the patient, signal onsite staff, and even ring the on-cart alarm. While this is happening, the other patients are under peripheral observation in the monitoring zone—which means that no one is going completely ignored. Since the observer can view everyone at once, there is less risk of fatigue.
Video Size
Another factor that our team focused on to reduce fatigue is the size of the individual videos on the Collette Health screen. At first, we were worried about the size of the videos in our current design. In researching user experience, we also considered how people watch videos now. We observed that most tend to consume video on their phones held vertically, even though one can turn the device horizontally to make the video larger. The videos on our Collette Health screen are actually 64% larger than videos on a Google Pixel 3a cell phone, and 74% larger than videos on an iPhone 8/SE when those devices are held vertically. These percentages validated that we were making a good decision with our 32-inch monitor.
Our videos are larger than what most people view when watching videos on their phones, and sitters are still able to see the entire screen at one time. When an observer can actually observe ten patients at once, using Collette Health’s 32-inch monitor, cutting-edge screen design, and peripheral vision, sitters are able to stop patient falls before they happen. A smaller screen means less eye movement. This makes the sitter experience better and contributes to keeping patients safer: the more sitters see, the more they can prevent.
To watch The UX Difference webinar on-demand right now, register here!
To read our white paper about how Collette Health’s thoughtful design improves both patient safety and sitter satisfaction, download it here.
To learn more about Collette Health, visit our Contact Us page now.