Philips is the global leader in Image-Guided Therapy (IGT). This medical specialization provides integrated solutions that allow for minimally invasive medical procedures. A specialized medical team consisting of multiple stakeholders works closely with Philips's newest technological devices and systems during these interventions. These complex procedures are followed and guided via real-time, on-screen imaging modalities. This way, technology-enabled, optimal care can be provided for many different interventions. Clinical demands, challenges and complexities can be very specific and patient-dependent. Often bottlenecks in IGT procedures come down to limitations like sterility and hands-busy situations. However, touchless interaction technologies provide solutions in many ways. Technologies like eye-gaze, voice control and gesture sensing are expected to minimize the number of mistakes made and time lost because of inefficiencies. The future context of IGT is explored by doing creative trend research to get an idea of the technologies, trends, and developments in the future healthcare landscape. A future vision of IGT is established to give an expression of a desired future. It provides a strategic reference point for actionable innovations. Through qualitative research, ideation and conceptualization, several design implications are provided. Synthesizing these concepts into an implementation strategy that aligns with the future vision is essential. Since the result of this thesis will be a roadmap, a division is made into three separate horizons leading towards the future vision. These horizons address a particular aim, alignment with the developing healthcare landscape and related implementation of the concepts into the roadmap. Through validation and assessment, the roadmap is optimized and aligned with the business. An estimated improvement target is established as a reference point. Additionally, the expected value of the clinical and operational performance of the concept propositions are estimated and substantiated. This results in a strategic roadmap that can deliver concrete insights and provide guidance in the implementation possibilities of these touchless UI innovations in this healthcare domain. ... Read more

Unfortunately, accidents and emergencies happen every day. Today, emergency services only rely on auditory information from the caller; to dispatch the right tools and instruct the caller. Imagine if the dispatcher gets extra visual information and sensors to their disposal. Or that the caller receives immersive, self-evident instructions right in front of their eyes. So they can provide aid without taking their hands or their attention away from the emergency. That is all possible with EVU. EVU, Emergency Vision Unit is a mixed reality helmet to professionally deal with critical emergency calls while the first responders are on their way. EVU provides visualisation of instructions in real-time to the caller during an emergency and gives the dispatcher real-time visual information to assist. ... Read more

Clinical alarms, which were initiated to draw medical staff's attention when there are changes of a patient's condition, are simultaneously bring out negative influences for patients’ mental and physical health as well as clinicians’ well-being and work efficiency (Cvach, 2012; Drew et al., 2014). Aiming to reach silent patient rooms as well as reduce the alarm fatigue for nurses, an initial idea of using Augmented Reality to visualize alarms
on patient window at night from outside the patient room was proposed. Through the context research and user research, it has been found that the biggest support that ICU nurses need regarding alarms is the information from other rooms when they are inside the patient rooms. Thus, the direction of project shifted from displaying alarm information from outside to inside where the idea is most beneficial for ICU nurses. The findings from expert interviews and nurse interviews lead to a clearer design goal, which is to design
a display system which supports ICU nurses to check real-time alarm information from other patient rooms and respond with touchless interaction through the patient window during night shift. The design goal was divided into three sub-goals: transparent display, touchless interaction and alarm information interface. For each sub-goal, the design went through iterations separately. After an benchmarking research, projection film was chosen to use in the project; by testing with 8 participants, gestures which have the best error
rate were chosen for implementation; by sending out questionnaires to nurses, the alarm interface was iterated and improved based on 11 nurses' response. In the end, three part were integrated and the final design was evaluated by 5 ICU staff (including one technician and 4 nurses) at EMC. With the final design, the nurses are able to get real-time alarm information when they are in another room and remotely deal with the alarm right away. The final design is perceived by the nurses in general as an easy to understand, attractive and practical design. However, there still remain needs from nurses that are not fulfilled and more relevant possible research topics were found out. More possibilities should be researched and tested for development. The recommendations regarding these needs and possibilities are provided at the end of the project. ... Read more

To study passenger contentment data and design for a better hygiene experience for a future aircraft: flying-v, researches and design were performed step by step. Firstly, to understand the overall situation of current flying experience, data were gathered from three co-creation sessions and a survey of 128 participants with experience of long-haul flights. Negative observations related mainly to physical discomfort and feelings of boredom. While social interaction was important for some passengers, it was generally superseded by the need for privacy. Relaxation was seen as important as well by the passengers. In-flight entertainment was frequently dissatisfactory, and eating was something passengers looked forward to and viewed as a type of entertainment. Some suggestions are made as to how these findings could be integrated into future aircraft design. Hygiene, a small part of the trip can also influence the experience of the entire trip. Co-creation sessions and online surveys were conducted again with a focus of hygiene/refreshing experience. The main complaints for current situation were: long queue, small space, low and small basin, nowhere to put personal belongings, unfriendly door, lighting condition and etc. Base on people's preference studied in the research, different conditions on seat, light, basin, storage,facility were build with VR technology for a experiments. 28 participants were involved and their contribution inspired the final design of a new hygiene space which is separated from toilet was created. Evaluation on this design involved 33 people was also done in VR environment. The data shows significant improvement on comfort and satisfactory. ... Read more

Captains are responsible for the medical care of their crewmembers. To do this, they receive one week of training every five years during which they study the knowledge and practice the skills and processes to handle medical incidents on board. The week of training is not enough for the captains to handle medical incidents confidently and they are in need of support.
Currently, the support for captains is limited to phone calls and email with a doctor from the Radio Medical Services. MedAssist.online invented 2-way-AR technology, a unique method of merging two realities into one using tablets and a green screen. The merging of two realities creates the possibility to give instructions to the captain using hands as an overlay on the video. The 2-way-AR video function is put at the centre of a service which is designed to match the treatment journey and increase the number of interactions between a doctor and captain. A service which uses live video with the addition of 2-way-AR technology has the potential to become the telemedicine solution that boosts the confidence of the captains and their treatment performance.
Boosting confidence is essential to help the captain be decisive in his actions. However, the real value of 2-way-AR is in supporting the captain perform medical skills like stitching and abdominal searches. This thesis researched the tablet positions and camera positions on both sides of the communication. For the doctor set-ups for different tablet positions were designed and tested to give him optimal control over his hands to give instructions. On the captain side, the camera position and tablet position were explored, built and tested. The set-up is evaluated on the understanding of the doctor of the captain's situation, his ability to interpret and implement the instructions and the flexibility of the set-up for multiple medical scenarios.
From testing various set-ups, it was concluded that an additional camera on the captain side improves the ease of understanding for the doctor and his ability to give instructions. At the same time, the captain can put the tablet in a position where he can easily switch between the patient and tablet to implement the instructions, without the tablet obstructing his work area.
This thesis has focussed on the physical set-ups of the tablet, camera and green screen on the captain and doctor side. The final test showed improvements in the new set-up design over the old, but there is an opportunity to improve the communication between the doctor and captain.
... Read more