The Perspectives of Clinicians on Enriching Patient Experiences in a Clinical Context: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Understanding the viewpoint of clinicians in a healthcare setting is a vital task to comprehend the success of patients undergoing physical rehabilitation. Addressing user experience is an essential activity which designers undertake when formulating product specifications at the early stages of product design. The involvement of clinicians during the product use-phase influences the progress and achievements attained by the patients throughout their rehabilitation journey. Several clinicians (n=16) were asked to participate in a qualitative study to evaluate the performance of different personae in activities of daily living. The experiences of patients who use rehabilitation products as part of their therapy session at the clinic were evaluated. Based on this evaluation, a set of clinician requirements were formulated to reflect the overall experience when using rehabilitation products. Understanding these requirements brought about several implications to be considered during the design cycle. Through these considerations and by adopting a user-centred design approach, designers are in a better position to design innovative products targeted at providing a high-quality user experience which increases customer satisfaction.

A Novel User-Centred Framework for the Holistic Design of Therapeutic Medical Devices

“…This follows from the observations made in the study, which implicate the importance of considering the UX of patients and clinicians at the different stages of the MDD process. Literature complements the latter by suggesting that the application of both functional and ergonomic design principles often results in the production of cost-effective medical devices, significant reduction in risks, coupled with higher-quality experience during product use (Bitkina et al, 2020;Abela et al, 2021). The MEDPRO framework is still subject to a thorough evaluation with medical device designers.…”

“…In the study conducted by Abela et al (2021), a total of 16 clinicians were interviewed to identify a set of clinician requirements in the design of therapeutic products (Study 1 in Figure 1). Recruited clinicians were mainly engaged to work in physiotherapy, stroke rehabilitation, occupational and neurological physical therapy.…”

“…This section presents the identified requirements essential to develop a framework which is suitable to support designers in the design and development of user-centred medical device products from the perspective of the three stakeholders in this study. As described in previous work, a set of six requirements emerged with what regards the needs of clinicians when making use of therapeutic products in a clinical setting (Abela et al, 2021). These will be amalgamated with the below sets of elicited requirements concerning patients and designers respectively.…”

“…Research shows that adopting a user-centred approach early in the design process helps in designing safe and clinically effective medical devices, which are easy and satisfying in terms of usability (Chandran et al, 2020). Abela et al (2021) showed that medical device design (MDD) tends to focus predominantly on the safety and efficacy of devices, often without involvement of the affected user or any consideration of user-product interaction. This is particularly evident in the design of therapeutic products, such as with rehabilitative or assistive technology (AT) where the intended purpose is often to sustain or enhance the functional capabilities of the user.…”

Towards a multi-user experience approach to exploring key requirements to design smart habilitation devices for children with cerebral palsy

“…Furthermore, it was emphasised that the device needs to be securely fitted with the limb of the child to ensure accurate motion capture. As highlighted by clinicians in Abela et al (2021) , ergonomics are very important because, if a device is fitted well, it is not uncomfortable to the user. Anthropometric data of upper limb were collected during the user profile-generation sessions to get an idea of the size range a smart habilitation device should be designed for, ranging from three-year-olds up to twelve-year-olds.…”