The Simulated RN system idea is designed to provide interactive patient education to mothers of newborn infants as part of the discharge process. The discharge process can have an impact on numerous factors associated with patient care and hospital-related outcomes including patient understanding of their care (e.g., health literacy, comprehension), the potential for adverse outcomes (e.g., miscommunication, medical errors), patient satisfaction (e.g., approval, happiness), hospital efficiency (e.g., bed availability, time constraints on healthcare providers) and the overall quality of hospital services (e.g., accessibility, the consistency of patient experience).

The Simulated RN will provide teaching and instruction to hospitalized patients—in combination with traditional practices—as part of a cooperative learning environment to enhance the patient experience. The Simulated RN project will utilize a virtual healthcare agent that is designed to deliver visual and auditory face-to-face consultation with patients while upholding a natural appeal. The system will provide authentic prescribed material that supports meaningful user interests. The system will communicate workflow and user input should be easy. It is anticipated that the application of a “user-friendly” interface can improve the quality of communication, patient comprehension related to their care and overall patient satisfaction, while concurrently improving hospital related outcomes (e.g., reducing time constraints, improving communication, and increasing consistency of patient experiences).

The author is a senior instructional technologist at Henry Ford Hospital in the Department of Internal Medicine, and works generally, supporting education and research initiatives through the use of technology. The author does not work in the labor and delivery or post-partum area and this project has no direct relationship to his job.

The research and development was conducted independently of any other designers. All facets of the research project including design, programming, and prototyping (including testing) were carried out by the author.

The inspiration for project selection includes a general interest in virtual agents and previous research conducted by Northeastern University in collaboration with Boston Medical Center related to the use of virtual agents in healthcare.

M1: Your Idea: What Problem Are You Solving?
M2: Understand the Problem: What do users need?
M3: The Design
M4: Prototype
M5: Evaluation
Sketches / Illustrations