Getgo Carwash

Although this isn't directly related to our ongoing service design project with Hillman, I thought it was a nice example of good service design.

Yesterday, my friend Rebecca and I took my car through the GetGo carwash. Going through a carwash is pretty fun, normally, but the GetGo carwash is super fun---the soap that they spray on your car is rainbow colored! You're sitting in there snugly, and all of a sudden pink and yellow and blue sprays all over your windshield.


It's a really nice little detail---certainly not necessary as far as getting your car clean is concerned, but it makes those few minutes spent in the weird garage very pleasant, even delightful, because of the surprise factor.

I tried to take a quick video of the colored soap, but it's hard to see through my camera phone. Turn your speakers down a little; Rebecca squeals kinda loudly. :)

Success!

Well, the preliminary prototype went over with much success! I think they were really pleased with our grasp of the problem, not to mention the fact that we turned something out so quickly.

Now we wait. Our crew at UPMC is going to digest the materials we gave them, generate the text for the clinical descriptions on the different cards, and hopefully in a couple of weeks they'll be ready to test the service with a few patients.

In the mean time, I think Lalatendu and I are going to enjoy what's left of spring break, and then debrief the rest of our team on Monday so we can get started with the more conceptual phase of the project.

Patient Pathways - early prototype

Lalatendu and I have been hard at work (and it's spring break!) researching and developing an early prototype for our patient itinerary card.

Our project has changed a lot since our days over at Vox. Nowadays we're focusing on patient pathways at Hillman Cancer Center. Cancer patients at Hillman usually have repeat visits---some every 3 months, some every day for several weeks, etc.---and what happens during those visits often varies, from consultations and medication all the way up to transfusions and chemotherapy.

We've been working with the Center for Quality Improvement and Innovation at UPMC to develop a generalized itinerary for patients, listing information about locations, treatment procedures, and wait times as well as recommendations for leisure activities in and around the hospital. We've interviewed and chatted with staff, patients, and visitors, and have developed this early prototype to kickstart the patient testing this week:


We'll be meeting with our contacts over at the Center for Quality Improvement tomorrow morning to see what they think, so I'd better get some sleep. Hopefully they'll want to move ahead with this, as we've already generated some really great ideas about how to move this towards a digital software format that'll hopefully wow the pants off Microsoft.

For a closer look and more detailed information about our itinerary card, please view our preliminary presentation (pdf).

Research Assistant - research methods tool for hospital researchers

While we we've been waiting for UPMC to align our research interests with projects that are currently underway, we've been given a 1-week assignment to make journals more accessible as research tools to hospitals researchers.

Justin & I developed Research Assistant, a software service that not only enables researchers to develop their own journals, but also takes them through the entire research process, from inquiry all the way to delivery.

We learned a lot from the Research Toolbox (pdf) developed by Daedalus Excel and Thoughtform, and used their 2x2 model to inform how Research Assistant determines appropriate research methods for different tasks.


The coolest part about Research Assistant is its accessibility. We established 5 very clear steps in the research process, and RA walks the researcher through each step, step by step. In a hospital environment where no one has any time to spare for mistakes, RA would enable researchers to sit down and develop an effective, appropriate research tool in very little time, and then come back and evaluate and deliver the research findings in a clear and straightforward manner.


To read more about Research Assistant and to see more of the awesome screens that Justin developed, please view our final presentation (pdf).

Welcome to Rhombus

Welcome to the Rhombus