With its commitment to improving clinical outcomes using world-class digital technologies, Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service (GCHHS) sought an industry partner to co-design and develop a prototype Patient Journey Tracker which placed the customer experience at the core of all activities.
The Varsity Lakes Day Surgery Hospital was recently commissioned by GCHHS to undertake minor surgery procedures which didn’t require the patients to stay in the hospital overnight. Based on the research conducted, two themes were identified which included transparency for patients and their circle of support, and efficiency and productivity for clinical and administrative staff.
Since patients are reliant on their carers to provide transport and support, providing carers with up-to-date information presents a constant challenge due to the varying length of surgical procedures. Nurse and administrative staff responding to the queries of carers consumed a significant amount of time, causing work disruption and negatively impacting their overall efficiency and productivity.
In addition to this, a consistent theme of improving communications during the surgery process was identified. It was established that the communication gap should be addressed in order to reduce the anxiety of both patients and their circles of support.
Some examples of feedback that were used as the basis for the project’s problem definition.
I feel like there is no form of reliable communication with patient’s relatives and next of kins regarding the progression of the patient’s surgery.
My husband found the waiting time whilst I was in surgery was a time of uncertainty, stress, and frustration. Insufficient intraoperative information was the cause of surgical waiting time uncertainty. Notifying my husband of my progress would have been significant because the delay of information increased his anxiety.
A fully functional Proof-of-Concept (PoC) built on Liquid State platform includes a full and flexible UI/UX kit linked to a library of pre-coded, but themeable, React interface components. This approach allowed for the delivery of a truly testable health solution quickly, efficiently, and economically.
The prototype demonstrated the ability to engage carers regarding the status of patients during the completion of various surgical procedures within GCHHS, with:
Leveraging the Liquid State platform, we delivered a fully functional PoC that consisted of two components.
myGCsurgery App– a cross-platform PoC app for iOS and Android, including experiences for patients undergoing cataract surgery and their circles of support, with notifications, documents, and tools delivered to the app in alignment with patients’ statuses.Administration dashboard – a simple web dashboard for exemplifying PoC status transitions (which trigger in-app behaviors), viewing a list of patients, and sending them ad-hoc notifications.
