Context is everything when doing front-end, qualitative research for product development. It’s one thing to ask open-ended, probing questions about the task under consideration, but it’s another to ask those questions in a setting that allows an interviewee to interact with his or her environment as he or she answers. In someone’s “natural” environment, you will get much deeper recall, demonstration and insight than you typically will in a focus group facility. But, when you are interested in doing this type of work with health care clinicians, being able to do a deep extended interview in a clinical environment can be the stuff of dreams – due to the hectic and sometimes chaotic nature of clinical healthcare settings. Imagine trying to interview an emergency room nurse about a particular device that she regularly uses – in the middle of the emergency room. 


We can imagine it because we have recently done it. Our Research and Strategy Team recently completed two different projects: a Voice of Customer (VOC) exercise and a prototype evaluation exercise – with clinicians in a clinical setting, but without the myriad distractions and pressures and risks that acute care settings typically present. We did it through our partnership with the Rhode Island Medical Simulation Center. 

Located nearby our facility, in downtown Providence, the Simulation Center is a facility designed to enable hospital staff to experience fully “simulated” medical events, such as trauma or other circumstances in order to broaden their experience and education of medical situations. Designed to replicate real acute care settings, such as emergency room or intensive care room, it has all kinds of technology to help hospital staff learn new techniques and procedures without presenting a risk to a “real” patient.

Simulation environments such as this have proven invaluable in our efforts to collect insights into how clinicians work and use products in their environment. Instead of just telling us how she might move a patient during surgery, for example, a nurse can demonstrate how it’s done, and stop midway to elaborate on certain difficulties that she might experience with a certain device at this point. With our engineers, designers and clients watching from behind a one-way window, this type of information allows us to ensure that every opportunity for innovation and improvement is noted and probed until fully understood.

Members of our research team regularly enter real clinical settings to observe patient flow or surgeries, or to interview clinicians or support staff. Nevertheless, being able to do some of our work in Simulation Centers, such as the one here at Rhode Island Hospital, has provided us with a multitude of benefits. Besides being quick and convenient to arrange, working at the Sim Center offers us the opportunity to collect high quality data, such as gaining insights as they relate to workflow, use model and human factors/ergonomic considerations, while allowing important issues such as patient confidentiality and project confidentiality – to be managed effectively. It also allows us to spend the kind of time - long and focused – with clinicians, in their own familiar “habitat”.