Since March 2014, West Africa has experienced the largest outbreak of Ebola in history. Although health organizations in the States have been developing plans to confront potential pandemic outbreaks, there have not been enough solutions that speak to children's emotional needs. Therefore, we designed cute, cuddly Teddy Bears which can connect to hospital Wi-Fi to relay parents' voice messages to young patients in a physically comforting medium.
Expert Interviews Findings
We interviewed emergency room physician Dr. Phil Green. He provided key information on how hospitals handle pandemic situations.
Ebola has a high mortality rate (61%)
Ebola is transmitted through body fluids
Ebola is extremely infectious
Ebola patient's family will be quarantined for 21 days.
Experience Map
Persona
After consulting Seattle Children's Hospital nurses, we generated two personas: children and parents.
Design Themes
Comfort
The design should provide emotional comfort for the young patient.
Safety
The design should fit into hospital sanitation procedures and minimize the chances of cross-contamination.
Accessibility
The design should be accessible, with minimal mental and physical effort.
Ideation
We brainstormed 60 potential solutions.
Concept Selection
We first picked the top five ideas that met the requirements of comfort, safety, and accessibility. After evaluating the top five ideas, "Teddy Bear" becomes the ideal solution.
System Map
The cloud service receives voice messages from parents and forwards them to the modem system.
Implementation
Although we designed for an Ebola outbreak, TeddyBeddy is ideal for any situation when young patients are isolated in hospitals. Based on the hospitals' ecosystem, below are two implementation directions:
Modem system
The outer layer of TeddyBeddy could be destroyed or sanitized regularly, leaving the modem system intact. When a child patient arrives, the nurse could set up the modem system with the child’s patient ID.
Assist child life specialists
Many hospitals have Child Life Specialists. Their roles include explaining a child's diagnosis and providing emotional support. TeddyBeddy could be a great assistive tool for Child Life Specialists.
optional service charge
The hospital emergency room could implement TeddyBeddy as an optional service charge. Since we could reuse the modem system inside the bear, parents only need to pay for the stuffed toy and cloud service fee.