ANA TOPOLE

Work / Service design

Paramedic, App for ambulance crews

Informed. Prepared. Guided.

Project Details

Category
Service design
Discipline
Service design, UI design, UX design
Team
Group project with Žiga Dolinar and Gal Grobovšek

Paramedic is an app for ambulance crews. It gathers everything known about a patient in one place and guides the team through every stage of an intervention, from the first alert to handing the patient over at the hospital.

Hands holding an iPad with the Paramedic alert screen: Intervention, priority 80 and a red Start button

80

insights from interviews with doctors, general practitioners and hospital specialists

Around 5

healthcare information systems in Slovenia that don’t talk to each other

0–5

radio statuses paramedics already work in. The app follows the same steps.

Research

Around five systems that don’t talk to each other.

How medical staff access and handle patient information in Slovenia was the starting brief. After desk research, the team interviewed doctors, general practitioners and hospital specialists, and wrote 80 insights.

One theme kept coming up. Slovenia runs around five healthcare information systems that don’t talk to each other. A GP told them: “Many times we have to take blood because we can’t see the results, and the patient had blood taken 14 days ago.”

Focus

Where does missing information hurt most?

The team brainstormed around the untapped potential of the national health insurance card, and patients taking more responsibility for their own health data. When they evaluated the directions, a third one stood out. Doctors can at least ask the patient or wait for records. Paramedics often can’t. They arrive knowing nothing about the person in front of them, so the team changed its focus.

In additional in-depth interviews, paramedics explained that dispatchers collect information from callers who are often in shock, so it isn’t always reliable. What paramedics need most is short and specific. Age, for example, is critical with children.

Whiteboard covered in handwritten sticky notes under the headings Problem 3 and How might we, about the health insurance card and patients’ responsibility for their own health
Brainstorming.
Digital board titled Unused potential of the ZZZS card, with the ideas sorted into three columns and marked with votes
Grouped ideas and voting.

What paramedics need most

Allergies, age, weight, chronic illnesses and therapies, past treatments, last meal, last memory before the incident

Mapping

From the 112 call to the handover.

With the paramedics’ input, the team mapped a full intervention in a large flowchart. It runs from the 112 call through dispatch, the drive, the assessment on scene, transport and handover. They revised it after the second round of interviews.

The map showed them the backbone of the app: paramedics already work in radio statuses from 0 to 5, so the app follows the same steps.

The app

One app, six statuses.

  1. 0AlertPriority, location on a map, and the patient’s basic condition (bleeding, consciousness, breathing). A mass-casualty mode shows several patients at once.
  2. 1On the wayThe patient’s profile, with allergies, chronic diseases, medicines, previous illnesses and other critical notes. Patients, doctors and dispatchers can enter data, so the crew sees it all in one place.
  3. 2On sceneGuided assessment using the ITLS and SAMPLE protocols the paramedics already use. Every field can be filled in by voice, so hands stay free.
  4. 3Load and goThe crew adds the patient’s condition and decides which unit to take them to.
  5. 4HandoverA recorded summary of the patient’s condition for the hospital team, plus an equipment checklist to restock the ambulance.
  6. 5ReadyOne tap confirms the crew is ready for the next call.
iPad screen for status 0: priority 80, bleeding, consciousness and breathing marked no, a red Confirm button, the current time and a map with the patient’s location
Status 0, alert: priority, the patient’s basic condition and the location on a map.
iPad screen in mass-casualty mode: four patient cards with bleeding, consciousness and breathing, beside the priority, a Confirm button and the map
Mass-casualty mode shows several patients at once.
iPad screen for status 1: the patient’s photo, age and weight, allergies, chronic diseases, medicines, previous illnesses and other information, with the status timer
Status 1, on the way: the patient’s profile.
iPad screen for status 2: assessment fields such as the initial assessment, symptoms and mechanism of injury, each with a microphone button
Status 2, on scene: a guided assessment where every field can be filled in by voice.
Hands typing on an iPad that shows the patient’s profile beside the field for the initial assessment of the injured person’s condition
The initial assessment, with the patient’s profile always in view.
iPad screen for status 3: fields for the patient’s status after treatment, with buttons to choose the ambulance unit and to alert the hospital, and the time to hospital
Status 3, load and go: the patient’s condition and the choice of unit.
iPad screen for status 4: a field for the patient’s status at handover, an equipment checklist with toggles, and the time of each status with the total time
Status 4, handover: the summary for the hospital team, the equipment checklist and the timer, which tracks every status and the total time of the intervention.
iPad screen with a green gradient, the words Ready for new call and a green Confirm button
Status 5Ready: one tap confirms the crew is ready for the next call.
Three paramedics in orange high-visibility jackets and blue gloves tend a patient on a stretcher inside an ambulance. In the centre sits the Paramedic app icon: a red star of life above the word paramedic on a white rounded square.
The Paramedic app.