Designing for improving verbal patient transfer

Abstract

The current verbal patient transfer between nurses and paramedics lacks communication, which leads to loss of information. During this operation, handwritten protocols are used to document the patient's personal data and the treatment given at several intervals. In order to encourage teamwork between the two parties (i.e. nurses and paramedics), the challenge is to present the patient information in a more accessible and feasible way. In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of an interactive and tangible presentation medium that aims to improve the verbal patient transfer by mediated communication. Our result shows that the concept would improve the current verbal patient transfer as evaluated by paramedics and nurses. © 2009 Springer.