Information overload can impact patient care and safety, particularly in the operating room, where quick and accurate interpretation of a patient’s vital signs is crucial.

Philips launched the Visual Patient Avatar in 2023. [Photo courtesy of Philips]

Time constraints, capacity limitations, and data overload contribute to poor situational awareness, which is the ability of clinicians to understand and effectively respond to the surrounding environment. In fact, poor situational awareness accounts for over 80% of anesthesia-related mistakes. This striking number shows the prevalence of data misinterpretation among clinicians and how it can lead to costly medical errors.

To address this challenge, the industry needed a new way to simplify how patient data was presented to anesthesiologists on patient monitors. Philips collaborated with clinical research partners at the University Hospital of Zurich to launch an innovative avatar-based patient monitoring solution designed to reduce the impact of cognitive overload on decision-makers.

Informed by clinician feedback and research, the team demonstrated how adding a visual depiction of a patient’s health status improved clinical decision-making and enabled the delivery of quick care and life-saving, timely interventions. The creation process behind this innovation is a testament to the impact of a collaborative approach between designers and end-users to benefit clinicians and allow them to deliver care with confidence.

Alleviating cognitive overload through simple visual design

While visual representations of anesthesiology data existed, they were often centered around detailed human figures — frequently using a white male figure as the basis — that could be zoomed in to review specific data points. This information is all critical, but this type of visual added complexity to what anesthesiologists were reviewing.

This Philips Visual Patient avatar displays critical information about a patient’s vital signs: for example, the red heat waves mean body temperature is high, the completely filled air bubble indicates end-tidal CO2 is normal, and closed eyes indicate brain activity below the lower threshold. [Image courtesy of Philips]

Instead, Philips and the University of Zurich set out to create a simple snapshot of a patient’s vitals and overall condition that would guide anesthesiologists’ assessment and allow them to quickly react to changes and focus their attention on the most critical patient information at the moment.

The Philips Visual Patient Avatar is represented through a basic silhouette that uses animations, colors, and shapes to demonstrate a patient’s vitals, such as oxygen levels, heart rate, and body temperature. This allows anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists to recall and process critical data through a glance at the monitor, enabling better care decisions by minimizing distractions and confusion.

Using a simplified human shape with a neutral coloring instead of an anatomically correct figure also helps to remove medical assumptions by eliminating sex and race from the visualization. Additionally, the Avatar’s design allows for the universal recognition of the visual cues that represent changes in a patient’s condition.

While doctors may be trained to deliver the same type of care, they do not always speak or understand the same language, including written text and even numbers. However, simple designs can be universally identifiable, reducing the need for interpretation and potential errors.

A clinical study found 73% of all vital sign information was correctly identified during the first use of the Avatar. Another clinical study found that users of the Avatar recalled almost double the number of vital signs after 3- and 10-second glances at the monitor. There was also an increase in the percentage of perceived vital signs by 57% when viewed for 10 seconds, and the perceived workload for the task decreased by 12%.

Cross-industry inspiration and clinical research partnerships for end user-centric solutions

When it comes to innovation, research has shown that bringing people from different industries together can be a source of radical novelty. The inspiration behind Visual Patient Avatar came from a source that may surprise you: the aviation industry.

This Philips anesthesiology avatar displays critical information about a patient’s vital signs: for example, the snowflakes mean body temperature is low, the partially filled air bubble indicates low end-tidal CO2, the blue heart vein (indicating the vena cava) is filled to indicate normal central venous pressure, while the red heart vein measures cardiac output, showing the aorta as fully filled. [Image courtesy of Philips]

In addition to being practicing anesthesiologists, the creators also happened to be pilots who were inspired by the synthetic vision used on a plane’s dashboard, specifically how it gave them more confidence to navigate poor weather and low-visibility situations. Spotting the similarities with the situational awareness challenges in the OR, the creators explored new opportunities and spent five years researching and developing the Avatar.

Developing an innovative solution requires collaboration and a willingness to evolve the design to meet the end-user’s needs. In the case of creating Visual Patient Avatar, we relied on a combination of clinical expertise with the right technology partner to bring it to life.

As part of the creation process, practicing clinicians were key stakeholders in the design phase as they had a firsthand view of the most pressing care-related problems, knew the challenges at hand and the priority in which they needed to be fixed. Additionally, they were aware of the frustrations in their daily jobs as anesthesiologists and cognizant of the challenging task of convincing other clinicians who rely on patient monitors that this simple visual would be impactful in alleviating cognitive overload.

The next stage in creating the avatar was ensuring the correct data was fed into accurate algorithms to deliver precise and actionable data to anesthesiologists. To do so, we had to consider key metrics such as perceptual performance, situational awareness, and qualitative indicators to test the effectiveness of the design.

Leveraging patient data and practical clinical experience, we fostered an effective partnership where the objective was the same — to develop an innovative solution that would meet the needs of the end users and their patients. Not only does this ensure that the solution will truly address their needs, but it will also keep patient safety at the forefront of their minds. If we continue to collaborate on technologies created with the patients and end-users in mind, we are doing our part to support healthcare in new and unique ways.

Novel ideas that solve some of the most critical problems can sometimes stem from unexpected places. Just like the synthetic vision on planes helped practicing anesthesiologists find a solution to alleviate cognitive overload, technology developers should continue to be inspired by the creations of other industries.

In the face of everyday challenges, healthcare technology manufacturers must pair with the right clinical research partners and prioritize creating devices and solutions that will truly benefit the clinician. Ultimately, focusing on patients and how to improve outcomes inspires healthcare innovation.

Mark Holger-Konrad is head of medical and clinical hospital patient monitoring at Philips. [Photo courtesy of Philips]

Mark Holger-Konrad is head of medical and clinical hospital patient monitoring at Philips and previously held clinical leadership positions at PULSION Medical Systems SE and Getinge. He was a practicing anesthesiologist for more than 13 years and received his doctorate from Heidelberg University in Germany.

Article source: MedicalDesign&Outsourcing