NURSES' LOUNGE
REDESIGN
Group project with Chaeeun Lee, Yulan Ren, Yonghun Jung
Nurses, doctors, physicians, and many healthcare workers are fighting on the front line for all the human-being. However, most of their resting areas in the hospital are not very comfortable. How can we redesign the room to make it more restful and helpful?
Background
01
Mess Map
In order to sort out all the possibilities in the hospital, we decide to start from the mess map to have a better understanding of what is happening with the workers in the hospital. The following injuries are very likely to occur: overexertion, needle sticks, violence, slips and falls, sprains and strains, sleep deficiency, infections, broken bones, and head injuries. Out of all the injuries, sprains and strains is the most common one due to the long-standing and long shifts.
02
Sleep research
The oxford university conducts a project on effects on resident work hours, sleep duration, and work experience. In the result, they compare with the Extended Duration Work Roaster (EDWR), which will extend-duration (>= 24 hr) shifts to the Rapidly Cycling Work Roster (RCWR), which is scheduled shift lengths were limited to 16 or fewer consecutive hours. As the result, RCWR obtained significantly more sleep per week on the RCWR compared with the EDWR. Based on this result, we realize that sleep is really important as it can prevent many injuries in the healthcare working field.
Primary
Research
01
Survey & Vlog Observation
After identifying stakeholders, we conduct a survey for the healthcare workers, mainly doctors and nurses to fill out how stress is their work, how they rest during break time, if they are satisfied with their resting area, and so on.
They always eat snacky food because they do not have time for a proper meal. One of them has to use many things such as an eye mask, melatonin, essential oil, and a sound machine to be able to fall asleep after a night shift. The shift of nurses is usually from 9 to 16 hours. All of them have mental breakdowns at some moments, they would cry out in the bedroom or bathroom and then return to the work. They think society does not realize how difficult nursing can be, and they do not get paid enough like doctors. They advocate for self-care and encourage to speak out about the difficulties to the public to educate more people.
Ideation
Relieve Stress
Analyze a way to let them relieve stress in a more efficient, easier way for their mental health
Better Environment
Re-design resting area using technologies (Food system, Sleep environment, VR Relaxing)
Public Recognition
Build the bridge between the public and the workers to show encourangment and reconition
Prototype (1)
Redesign of layout and Interiors
2D & Render redesigns
3D Modeling
Prototype (2)
Immersive VR bedroom
By separating the rooms by functionalities, it will encourage more usages of the resting room to distinguish different functionalities. By using VR, we design optimal contextualized environments that make people think or believe they are in a different world. This provides a Sense of Presence, a feeling of absence from the workspace. The sense of being received in a virtual space can eventually lead health care workers to believe that they are in a place other than the hospital.
Turn on the sound to have full experience
Turn on the sound to have full experience
Prototype (3)
Redesign TV screen in the hall way
There are always gaps between calling patients. We decide to utilize those gaps to make the TV more efficient. We create an app that allows everyone to send thank you notes and encouragements to be shown on the TV. Patients and visitors can choose to scan the QR code to type thank you, while nurses and doctors can share more about self-care knowledge. Families of healthcare workers can also send pictures and text on special holidays to share the joy and the miss.
