Sensoring and occupancy, what consequences for healthcare?
During the first day of the Bits, Bricks & behavior conference, healthcare buildings are central, Op On Monday, November 9, dr.ir.drs. Johan van der Zwart, Merlin Smits, MSc, en Prof. Dr. Harry van Goor, three use cases about applied technologies in healthcare. The three healthcare professionals will then enter into a dialogue with each other about the consequences and added value for healthcare and the patient.
A personalized patient room with an environment projected on the wall that the patient feels comfortable with and ditto sounds? This was one of the starting points of the Room with a view project at Radboud University Medical Center by professor of surgery Harry van Goor – also one of the initiators of the project with continuous monitoring (see ICT&health 6, 2019). It is already clear that technology has an impact on healthcare processes and that nurses are just as important a target group to include as the patient themselves.
The Room with a view project, which was started in 2017, is the basis of recovery program R4Heal, for what a pilot is running in the Nijmegen university hospital. It is an interactive room personalized with digital technology, which also includes games, images, sounds and virtual reality components. This should improve a patient's well-being and thus promote recovery, according to Merlijn Smits, involved as design manager at R4heal.
Expansion of R4Heal pilot
There are currently two pilot rooms, one of which is being tested by volunteers and one by patients in the Neurology nursing department. The intention is to test the technology required for the rooms – such as sensors, video walls and cameras – on an entire department in the old building. According to Van Goor, these experiences with an expected 20 beds can be transferred to the 150 single rooms in the new building (as planned from 2022).
Van Goor was inspired by the concept of a 'healing environment' in 2015. “Stress, pain, movement and sleep are important factors in recovery that you can influence with a hospital environment - such as lighting and images of nature. I think that an environment that suits someone is central to boosting the recovery of patients after, for example, a surgical procedure.”
Staff, patient interaction
Healing environment – audiovisuals on the wall, light, etc. – is one element. However, according to Van Goor, the environment is just as much shaped by hospital staff and their interaction with patients. “Especially during the Covid-19 period, we have noticed how important it is that information reaches the staff in the right context from the patient room. There are so many nice tricks you can do with virtual reality and beautiful wall projections: if it is not clear to the staff why a patient presses a button, their well-being does not improve.”
Merlijn Smits states that the impact on patients and nurses is central to R4Heal. “How does a patient experience the technology? Can he or she handle it? Technology creates both the opportunity and the need for personalization. So that has become an important additional element. The role of the nurse is also changing. Not so much in the physical environment, but in dealing with that technology, guiding patients and passing on relevant information. It should not create more work for nurses, but rather support them.”
Register for a free visit to the interactive online conference Bits, Bricks & Behavior? Click here, or visit the conference website for more information.
Nederlands