HITLAB Team • December 13, 2023
HITLAB is thrilled to announce the completion of the usability study for Birthvue. Through this comprehensive study and engaging discussions with OBGYN professionals regarding gaps in maternal healthcare, our team has uncovered profound insights. One of the most significant revelations pertains to the intricate nature of integrating technology within labor room environments. While clinicians work with a lot of monitors and screens, they are no decision-making support tools available. Recent studies have highlighted the positive impact a doula can have on improving patients’ pain management. Building AI-driven solutions that can act as virtual doula to educate, engage and empower patients with information and relaxation therapies can be very beneficial. However, when it comes to helping clinicians, their needs are far more sophisticated. For a solution to be actually empowering and assisting clinicians with decision making, it needs to consider and align multiple critical factors like patient’s medical history, continuous labor progression and fetal measures, current clinical intervention, response to intervention, and national clinical treatment guidelines and then suggest safe and effective actionable insights.
Some other on-ground barriers that such digital health solutions may face include staff shortages, difficult to penetrate clinical workflows or unfavourable administrative set up, decision making influence of multiple stakeholders, and technical implementation or interoperability challenges.
Hence, to make the chances of a digital solution’s success better, we need to understand the intricacies of the clinical workflow in depth. However, more often we see a gap between solution developers and the intended end-users—our valued clinicians. HITLAB’s commitment to narrowing this gap is amplified by the realization that usability studies play a pivotal role in bringing creators and users closer together. This alignment isn’t just about crafting a solution useful for clinicians; it’s also about strategizing its successful introduction into the market. These studies serve as the cornerstone in unravelling the multifariousness of user needs, refining functionalities, and ensuring seamless integration into the healthcare ecosystem. By consistently prioritizing user centricity, we not only aim to refine various digital solutions but also elevate the overall standard of maternal healthcare technology.
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