User Story

I interviewed a visiting Nurse, who is close to my persona.

Interview

How was your day?

Not too bad.

Tell me what a day looks like for you?

Well I try to get in to the hospital at 6:30am. I take the bus in from mission Hill and it takes me 25 minutes to get to Mass General.

When I get there, I put down my bags, hang up my coat in the break room. I have small talk with the receptionist, Mildred, but I try to avoid too much discussion because she is a huge gossip box.

Then, I go to the coffee machine. My day cannot start without a cup of coffee. I go back to the reception area where the computer is located and check on the emails/notes that came in from the last shift. I then, lean over and grab all the charts of the current patient roster. Patients can be all over the place so I create a mental map out the path to that I will take to check on all the patients in an efficient manner, especially since the patients sometimes move around.

While you are doing this you are holding the charts and coffee, because you don’t have time to enjoy it. [RN animates in a dramatic way how she has the charts in one hand and coffee].

What takes the most time when you are checking each patient?

Bed-side manner to get them comfortable, and just to get them focused. A lot of prompting to get them to tell me what their issue really is.

What is the most painful thing you have to do?

Onion skin, this is where the fat deposits of your skin become paper thin and when you roll them you have to prevent from harsh bed sores, i.e., you have to be gentle or you will rip their skin.

How many people are you comfortable handling at time?

5-7 people, because after that the number of personal attention is diminished because you are trying to get as much as done and the patient feels rushed.

Can you continue to break down your day

Around 3:30pm: Wrap the rounds, go back to sit at the desk with Mildred, finished going through all the emails and hopefully reply to people this time. You are spending majority of the day monitoring the feeds coming into the rooms and answering any patient calls.

On a good day, it is almost copying and pasting, but on a bad day you will have to give precise detail to the doctor.

How much time are you spending on administrative paperwork at the end of the day?

1 – 2.5 hours, it really depends. If you do not get out by 5pm and there is an emergency at 5:01, you have to resolve it before you leave, or if Charlene doesn’t come in for the next shift on time, because of snow or anything, you will have to work until she comes in and the emergency is dealt with. Unpaid overtime.

What are your motivations?

Helping people, for example seeing Mr. Halesy make his first steps without a walker.

What are you trying to solve?

I want to make any of the things I do a bit simpler.

If there is a technology that could help what would you be looking for?

A dating app for Charlene, who is a big gossip, and needs to start dating!

[Laughing] That's fair, anything else to make your job simpler?

Maybe something that can be viewed on a phone or smaller device

What are your pain points?

Getting called in by administrators that have cut more of the budget and cutting out small perks like Train passes.

Not being able to have the freedom to execute something because I don't have the suffix at the end of my name [meaning the letters MD]. I know certain things because I’ve seen this for 23 years, but I have to get it signed off by the doctor, when I am doing all the work.