Bridging the analog-digital gap in healthcare

Consensus tech

If empathy tech helps designers think like users, “consensus tech” helps clients think like designers. AR/VR has made a huge difference in how easily we are able to communicate designs to a client and quickly reach decisions.

Designers are trained to think in 3D, and find it easy to look at a drawing and imagine the space it depicts. Clients usually have a hard time doing that, which until recently required a lot of extra work (and cost) to produce perspective drawings, architectural models, and physical mockups. AR/VR has changed all of that. Now, we can put clinicians directly into our designs. With a headset, a surgeon can navigate from their parking space, through the locker room and scrub room; enter the operating room, and check the place out first-hand. Is there enough room to move around? Can the table orientation be rotated dependent on the surgical procedure setup demands? What are the ergonomics of activating the medical gas, swinging the surgical booms and lights? AR/VR gives clients the experience they need to make decisions and move on.  

In some cases, this process has allowed us to skip mockups all together. That’s a quarter- to a half-million dollars that can then put back into the project.

The virtual patient experience

From children’s hospitals to senior-living communities, we’re also seeing more projects that include AR/VR equipment as a design feature.

MyndPlay is one example of a company pioneering so-called “immersive therapies” for the brain. Their mind-controlled VR platform allows users to control, influence, and interact with games, apps and movies. The process trains users’ brains to promote cognition, improve attention, overcome mental obstacles. In the memory-care environment, immersive therapies have already been shown to increase brain performance and improve dementia symptoms in memory-care patients.

AR/VR also shows promise as a form of positive distraction in clinical environments. AppliedVR offers a virtual platform that gives patients a respite from scary and painful healthcare experiences. Guided breathing exercises help chronic pain patients reduce dependency on opioid medications. Other applications include specialized content for labor & delivery and pediatrics.  Applied VR’s research shows a 52 percent reduction in pain and a 31 percent decrease in anxiety in randomized, controlled trials.

Depending on the mobility needs of patients being treated, different design considerations apply. In a physical-therapy setting, the VR setup should allow the patient to walk around and navigate the space. For stationary patients, like those in hospital beds, the setup can be more permanent.

The virtual doctor experience

As health systems work out the related reimbursement and HIPAA issues, telehealth is gaining traction the private sector.

A telehealth suite gives providers a platform to conduct an exam, talk to patients, families and care-team members, and give specialist consults. Essentially, they can be in two places at once. If they are needed in the main hospital, they can beam into the clinic, and vice versa. This gives health systems more efficiency, allowing patients to see a variety of different specialists in less time, and increasing the number of patients a clinic can see in a day.

A well-designed telehealth setup depends on the position of the cameras, and the size and positions of monitors, and high-quality, high-speed internet. Interacting with a thumbnail-sized doctor can make a patient feel less-than important. The bigger the screen the better. Eventually, we expect holographic technology to become a standard of care.

As telehealth spreads, it will be a lifesaver for rural health facilities and the patients they serve, giving instant access to physicians at the best urban academic medical centers.

Performance-enhancing design

In design, Augmented Intelligence (AI) offers a range of benefits, multiplying our analytical capabilities, and allowing us to reconsider long-held assumptions.

Generative design is a new design process that uses AI to crunch through thousands of minutely different prototypes of a design, adjusting and re-adjusting parameters in search of pinpoint efficiency. In a typical design process, we might be able to efficiently consider three or four options. A generative approach allows us to rapidly vet alternatives and explore architectural shapes that would have been unthinkable before. This promises to revolutionize both the efficiency and artistry of design.

AI also allows designers to harness data from IoT devices, making our designs more efficient and user-friendly. Many health systems currently use Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) to track the movement of equipment throughout a hospital, and improve the check-in process. Applied to the movement of employees, some are now using it to understand how teams collaborate. As a designer, this data helps us understand how the spaces we design are used in real life. Combined with AI, we are able to simulate a range of different spatial arrangements and identify the most efficient number of steps required to do routine tasks.

We’re just now scratching the surface of AI’s role in design. The opportunities are endless, with applications to everything from site-selection to 3D-printed interior finishes.

Back to the human experience

Technology today is transforming healthcare on every scale – from how designers understand our patients, to how patients access care. As technology develops, it’s critical for designers to remember that the patient experience is at the center of all of it. Connections to technology are only as good as our human connections to each other. With this in mind, technology promises an amazing future for medical design and construction.