Designing Patient-Centered Interventions for Emergency Care: Participatory Design Study

BACKGROUND: Emergency departments (EDs) are high-pressure environments where clinicians diagnose patients under significant constraints, including limited medical histories, severe time pressures, and frequent interruptions. Current ED care practices often inadequately support meaningful patient participation. Most interventions prioritize clinical workflow and health care provider communication, inadvertently overlooking patients' needs. Additionally, patient-facing technologies in EDs are typically developed without meaningful patient input, leading to solutions that may not effectively address patients' specific challenges. To enhance both patient-centered care practices and the diagnosis process in EDs, patient involvement in technology design is essential to ensure their needs during emergency care are understood and addressed. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to invite ED patients to participatory design sessions, identify their needs during ED visits, and present potential design guidelines for technological interventions to address these needs. METHODS: We conducted 8 design sessions with 36 ED patients and caregivers to validate their needs and identify considerations for designing patient-centered interventions to improve diagnostic safety. We used 10 technological intervention ideas as probes for a needs evaluation of the study participants. Participants discussed the use cases of each intervention idea to assess their needs during the ED care process. We facilitated co-design activities with the participants to improve the technological intervention designs. We audio- and video-recorded the design sessions. We then analyzed session transcripts, field notes, and design sketches. RESULTS: On the basis of ED patients' feedback and evaluation of our intervention designs, we found the 3 most preferred intervention ideas that addressed the common challenges ED patients experience. We also identified 4 themes of ED patients' needs: a feeling of inclusion in the ED care process, access to sources of medical information to enhance patient comprehension, addressing patient anxiety related to information overload and privacy concerns, and ensuring continuity in care and information. We interpreted these as insights for designing technological interventions for ED patients. Therefore, on the basis of the findings, we present five considerations for designing better patient-centered interventions in the ED care process: technology-based interventions should (1) address patients' dynamic needs to promote continuity in care; (2) consider the amount and timing of information that patients receive; (3) empower patients to be more active for better patient safety and care quality; (4) optimize human resources, depending on patients' needs; and (5) be designed with the consideration of patients' perspectives on implementation. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides unique insights for designing technological interventions to support ED diagnostic processes. By inviting ED patients into the design process, we present unique insights into the diagnostic process and design considerations for designing novel technological interventions to enhance patient safety. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-10.2196/55357.

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