Development of wearable healthcare device : A user-centred project focused on meeting discovered needs of nurses

Abstract: The healthcare industry is highly information intense and is progressively adopting information technology (IT) systems. Despite large resources being invested in health information technology, a large percentage of healthcare personnel are dissatisfied with functionality and usability of the systems. One main issue is considered to be the low grade of user involvement in development of health information technology systems and products. Tieto, the commissioner of the thesis project, develops IT systems for several different industries, amongst them is the healthcare industry. The purpose of the project was in collaboration with Tieto decided to be "By the use of a suitable development process; define work routine problems and potential improvements for nurses working at care units, and to develop a conceptual smart wearable device solving such a problem". The project was performed using a customised version of a spiral product development process, where different methods suitable for the project were integrated. A lot of focus was put on involving the user, nurses, in the development process and four different hospitals were visited to gather empirical results and to later validate findings and concepts. The result of the thesis is the conceptual product ELSA, a wearable alarm system developed for nurses. The alarm differs significantly from alarm systems used in care units today and each nurse will wear an ELSA watch which can generate emergency alarms and assistance alarms. The ELSA watch also enables seeing alarms from any location in the care unit. By keeping the alarm buttons close at all times, time can be saved in emergent situations.