Improving the hospitality of the UMC Utrecht

Improving the hospitality of the UMC Utrecht

Brinkman, C.

Stappers, P.J. (mentor)
Manschot, M.A.J. (mentor)
Jonkman, P. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

Master of Science Design for Interaction

2012-04-17

The aim of this graduation project is to improve the hospitality of the University Medical Centre of Utrecht (UMCU) by developing a product/service system that supports the patient in their personal needs within the entrance area of the hospital. The patient and their experiences are central in this project. The patients’ experience is shaped by the complete perception of the hospital visit. Therefor research is done on the entire hospital visit to discover the latent needs and wishes. By means of a thorough analysis and hands on research, contextmapping combined with physiological measurements, a better understanding of the UMCU’s patient is generated. By researching the complete experience of the patient, insights are developed on the different phases of a hospital journey. These insights show that the most interesting phases for the UMCU to focus on are the phases of preparation, reception and waiting. A better understanding of the UMCU patient population is realized by means of patient segmentation and results from the research. These insights are represented by four personas. A third result is surfacing the latent needs the patients have during a hospital visit. These needs are: having a sense of control over the process, a feeling of certainty by a predictable structure and being engaged in a personal way. The essence of this graduation project is showing the UMCU how they can improve their services based on the needs and wishes of the patient. The three insights mentioned above form building blocks in doing so. To be able to implement these insights guidelines are developed. These guidelines give direction to the embodiment of the patients’ needs. The embodiment of this product/service system can be done in a variety of ways. This is shown by the development of a solution space. To show how the development of the solutions can be implemented, in a gradual manner, an example case is given. The starting point of the project is to develop a solution for the entrance area. Therefor a roadmap for the design solutions is developed for the reception phase in specific.

hospitality
service design
hospital
user centered
personas
contextmappen
patient journey

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b1ea04ec-f3f6-4ccc-8fe2-81858b1af7de

2013-04-17

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2012 Brinkman, C.