Graduate Studies

Design for Health (MDes)

Victoria Weng

2. Improving Patient Discharge After Emergency Care

The Emergency Department (ED) is a place where patients are often anxious, vulnerable, and not in the best state of mind. Upon discharge, patients must be able to take responsibility for their self-care - to do so, this requires clear and easily understood instructions that inform and educates patients on their diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and expected course of illness. This vital information can be overwhelming and is not always given to patients. As well as having only verbal instruction means the patient must rely on their memory and cognition for what to do.This project aimed to address: How might we provide patients with a way to recall crucial care instructions after being discharged from the emergency department, while also informing and reassuring them of their health?

“By using an evidence-based framework to understand what patients needed, an intuitive and user-friendly mobile application for patients to view all the significant details of their healthcare visits at a glance was created.”