Author: Connor

 

 

The South Bend Zoo is an interesting Analogous Immersion to nursing homes. Both possess diverse populations of individuals that have very unique needs and temperaments. Both resident populations are cared for by professionals with years of education and experience. Zoos and nursing homes also have very specific daily routines that the residents and caretakers follow. It is also often common for both Zoos and nursing homes to be short on funding. This means that the organizations must choose how to prioritize spending carefully.

Potawatomi Zoo:

• Over 400 animals
• Over 200,000 visitors per year
• <50 employees
• Part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums
• Jobs include: Director, Keepers, a Dietician, General Curator, Veterinarian, Veterinary Technician, Educators, and more

Key Takeaways:

• Quality of employees is one of the most important things for a facility that is responsible for care giving. At the end of the day, the caregivers are the ones responsible for maintaining the health and well being of the residents. The importance of the caregiver indicates that any solution we pursue must either enhance or at the minimum not impede the experience of the caregiver (if it is patient/retiree focused).
• As was stated in our expert interviews at assisted living and nursing homes, it often comes down to the personal judgement and experience of caregivers to diagnose the degradation of, or issues with the residents’ health.
• Routine is key in properly maintaining the well being of such a large number of diverse residents. The organization must establish specific and nuanced schedules to ensure that each day’s activities go smoothly.
• Funding is often tight for smaller organizations of this nature, therefore the organization must frequently choose between spending on facility upgrades or hiring additional quality employees.
• Many smaller organizations do not or are not able to take advantage of new technologies that enable better resident care and health monitoring due to cost concerns. Cost will be a very important issue to monitor with any technology or service that we decide to pursue.

Ethnographic Summary

Annie

Licensed Practical Nurse – Woodridge Assisted Living

Date: 03/05/17

Location: Woodrige Assisted Living. 17650 Generations Dr, South Bend, IN 46635

Participants: Connor De Mill, Nick Homolka

Raw Audio Interview: https://goo.gl/41ibUw

Interview Transcript: https://goo.gl/T6g8RM

Connor and Nick interviewed Annie, a licensed practical nurse from Nairobi, Kenya working at Woodridge Assisted Living. Annie was chosen by Woodridge’s administration to participate in our interviews as an exemplary member of the care staff. Annie was able to provide interesting insights into the unique nature of caring for retirees, some of the reasons retirees are forced into assisted living, and the challenged she faces on the job.

Characteristics:

• Born in Nairobi, Kenya
• 40 years old
• Female
• Began career as a dental assistant
• Became a nursing assistant after moving to the U.S. in 2000
• Became an LPN in 2008
• Has a variety of nursing and elder care experience

Key Insights:

• Annie was drawn to elder care from a young age as she wanted to take care of her sick grandmother
• Annie has had a number of difficult experiences with patients and residents, she has been both physically and verbally assaulted
• Annie deals with difficult patient experiences through empathy
• The greatest satisfaction Annie gets from her job is being thanked by those she cares for
• Assisted living is very different from other types of elder care. There is no acute care performed, and the medical equipment and staff at the location are not there to deal with medical emergencies. Assisted living serves as a home for the residents, more like an apartment than a medical facility
• Annie believes that the biggest innovation related to her job has been computer charting. She believes that if computer charting were to be fully implemented at Woodridge, she would be able to perform her job much more efficiently
• Annie pointed out that two of the most significant causes of a retiree having to move out of their home are critical events like falls and illnesses, and a failure to take medication properly
• Annie has no desire to retire and wants to keep working as long as possible
• Annie believes that the most unique difficulty of dealing with retirees is the high prevalence of depression

Memorable Quotes:

“Sometimes it’s a fall or sometimes they’re just not taking the medication the way they’re supposed to take it. I’ve had somebody come in, and they’re told to take calcium 3 times a day and they say, ‘you know I forgot my dose in the morning and I forgot it at lunch so I decided to take 3 pills at night’. It happens. Or, ‘I just decided to skip my insulin’ and their blood sugar is way up so when it goes way up there try to double dose and then the blood sugar goes way down and then they’re in critical condition.”

” Depression, is a huge thing. They are separated from their families. And sometimes families don’t get to come visit them. Or they don’t see them as often, so with that age it’s a big time to go more into depression. And it can be from somebody being tearful, to somebody just quitting to eat, or somebody just completely stopping to mingle with other people, and we want to prevent that.”

Emerging Patterns:

Our caregiver interviews have consistently indicated that high performing caregivers love their jobs, and are very committed to patient well being. These individuals have no desire to retire due to the fact that they wish to continue making an impact on people’s lives. They have also consistently identified mental fitness and emotional well being as key components of health that are frequently ignored.

 

 

Design Brief: Optum Group

Project Description To devise a way to leverage the internet of things by utilizing wearables and smart home technology to improve remote health monitoring for the caregivers. Integrated monitoring devices will also aid independent retirees in maintaining their health and safety without the need for a caregiver.

Intent/Scope Time and resource constraints mean that the scope of the project will be limited to conceptualizing uses for devices or device integration within the Internet of Things. The project intends to devise a concept for a system or device that will improve the efficacy of caregivers and seniors monitoring their own health

Exploration Questions What from a user’s perspective is important during home caregiving? When should home care prevention start? What are current solutions/techniques in the home caregiver market? How are current home caregiver solutions/techniques being marketed? Why is there a stigma against assisted living facilities? What is the average age of a person when they enter an assisted living facility?

Target Users Post-Retirees (Likely 65+) Aging users, who are active, but will enter the home care market Users who already receive home care, but are not ready for a retirement home

Research Plan Current market report on existing products with similar features and functionality Form a general blueprint for the idea solution with Opium’s perspective Identify challenges in technology health monitoring Gather insights from professional health providers and market expertise Utilize ND’s resource data base and possibly finding mentors

Expected Outcomes Map out a solution with some possible imperfection Forming a long term (5 years) plan that would perfect the solution Possible implementation in real life scenarios with incremental changes A solid yes or no on the success of the solution and its continuity

Success Metrics Number of users able to remain in the home. Number of users in retirement homes. Age of users living at home

Project Planning Go through research process, empathizing with target. Brainstorm ideas to solve main issues. Come up with a design for a prototype. Interview potential target users for feedback on prototype. Fix any issues.