I had the great privilege to spend a week observing in the LPCH NICU. I followed Dr. Rhine and his team of fellows and residents during his rounds and had the opportunity to be a fly on the wall, noting what didn’t make sense to me, observing human-machine interaction, space, medical practices, babies and their parents. As a product designer, I was most intrigued by the workarounds I saw having to do with products nurses and doctors have to interface with on a daily basis. Space was also of interest to me. How is it organized, what’s filling it up, obstructing pathways, or making it difficult to move equipment from one room to another? How are people obligated to move in the space, and what is the emotional impact the environment has on visiting parents, the babies and clinicians who work there everyday? Since I could not take any photos, I found myself sketching everything in order to remember the thoughts and questions I had. Afterwards, I would share my discoveries with Dr. Rhine so he could see the NICU through the eyes of a non-medical person trained in observing, asking questions and developing solutions.

Everyday after I left the NICU I thought about the benefits of creating a group of designers, social scientists, public health experts and medical professionals for the purpose of learning about the various healthcare facilities in any given hospital. A design-focused hospital integrated groupthat could pinpoint the needs that would have the largest impact on patients, clinician work-flow, waste etc. This same group could conceive of, and implement the solutions to improve patient care and support best practices in a hospital. By consistently interviewing the employees, and observing with naive eyes, systemic, spacial, technical and interpersonal challenges would be discovered and solutions could be prototyped.