Creating a Parent-Informed Pediatric Emergency Department Wait Time App: Human-Centered Design Approach to Creating...

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Emergency Medicine
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Long emergency department (ED) wait times negatively impact pediatric patient outcomes and satisfaction.
• Patient-facing artificial intelligence (AI) tools are underutilized in EDs, especially those co-designed with caregivers.
• Providing wait time information can increase patient satisfaction and sense of control.

Purpose of the Study:

• To inform the design of an AI tool for pediatric EDs using insights from parents and healthcare providers.
• To create a tool that offers personalized wait time and health information to children's parents during ED visits.
• To improve the overall waiting experience for families in the pediatric ED.

Main Methods:

• Human-centered design methodology employed in a tertiary care academic children's hospital.
• Data collection via surveys, semistructured interviews, card sorting, observations, and prototype testing with parents and triage nurses.
• Thematic analysis of qualitative data identified key parental concerns, informing AI tool design and iterative usability testing.

Main Results:

• 64 parent interviews revealed key themes: anxiety from uncertainty, feeling forgotten, low health literacy, process confusion, and lack of progress indication.
• Parents overwhelmingly own smartphones and use apps, indicating readiness for digital health tools.
• AI tool design prioritized addressing these themes to improve communication and provide a sense of progress.

Conclusions:

• A human-centered design approach successfully developed an AI tool to enhance the pediatric ED waiting experience.
• The co-designed AI tool addresses parental anxiety by providing personalized wait time and health information.
• Implementing user-centered technology is crucial for creating clinically relevant, acceptable, and usable healthcare solutions.