The Guardian

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The Guardian

Creating a Smoother, Safer, Smarter Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

A stable environment is essential for the well-being of a baby born prematurely, and current neonatal medical technology is underdeveloped and underfunded. The Guardian is an ecosystem of products that better the NICU environment for the baby, the parents, and the staff. As a team, it was our goal to create solutions that can be retrofitted with the systems in use today. Through in-depth research, we identified pain points within the NICU experience and developed solutions that resolve problems in communication, monitoring, and stabilization. The Guardian creates a smoother, smarter, safer neonatal intensive care unit.

We were inspired by Layer’s clean and straightforward design language and graphic content to best communicate our solutions.

The Breakdown:

The Team:

My Role:

Duration:

Tools:

A team of 16 industrial designers working collaboratively with 12 medical professionals specializing in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

1. Conducted quantitative and qualitative research to explore the behaviors and needs for medical professionals, parents, and babies in the NICU.

2. Designed a display that keeps track of the key vitals of the neonate for the staff in an integrated system on the side of the incubator, maximizing the time spent looking over vitals and keeping the focus on the baby.

3 Months

Figma

Adobe InDesign

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Photoshop

SOLIDWORKS

Keyshot

The Problem:

The NICU is designed to provide extremely specialized care for premature babies. Their critical state makes them highly dependent on neonatal medical technology. A stable environment is essential for their well-being, and current technology is underdeveloped and underfunded.

Create solutions that can be retrofitted with the systems in use today.
Develop solutions that resolve problems in communication, monitoring, and stabilization.

Goals for this opportunity include:

The Process:

Research Methodology:

In-depth Interviews

Secondary Research

Journey Mapping

Observation

Affinity Mapping

Prototyping

My approach began with creating a research plan to set an achievable timeline and conveying this outline to stakeholders and interviewees to have everyone align with the project goal and what we were hoping to achieve.

The Interviewees:

We were given the privilege to interview some of the top neonatologists and medical technology experts in the country, as well as visit Savannah Memorial Hospital’s transport unit and Atlanta Children’s Hospital’s NICU. The knowledge shared by these incredible professionals gave us insights that acted as the basis of our design solutions.

With the help of these individuals, our project is more developed to meet specific needs within the NICU and utilizes technologies we would not have conceptualized on our own.

User Journey Maps:

It’s important for our group to understand the entire NICU process with a focus on the parents, hospital staff, and baby. We created a timeline for each, highlighting specific technologies, golden hour, transportation, and at home care.

Based on our user journey maps and in-depth research, we were able to asses pain points along each timeline and begin designing solutions.

The technology used in the NICU is complicated and diverse, sometimes causing problems due to the difficult-to-interpret information on the monitors and their inability to communicate with other machines. The reason for this is that hospitals only update equipment when necessary and will often pick the cheapest, most effective machine without regards to the company name, leading to a disconnected NICU. Additionally, all of these monitors and machines use multiple wires, which can become tangled in what is colloquially known in hospitals as “spaghetti,” and can get in the way of skin-to-skin contact with the mother during kangaroo care. Because of this, doctors and nurses desire a more streamlined NICU in which information is easier to process and the wires from the machinery do not inhibit their ability to care for the baby.

Transporting a premature infant may be necessary in some cases where a birthing hospital may not have a NICU or be able to provide the care necessary in their own NICU. Moving a baby in such critical condition is not ideal, and many of the environmental factors in the process do not help the situation. Multiple nurses are required to lift and move the baby from its stationary incubator to a transport incubator, which is then wheeled from the hospital to the ambulance, lifted into the ambulance, and secured before travel. Much of our research found that moving the transport incubator within the hospital itself was often more problematic, the instability caused the baby to be exposed to much larger vibrations and louder sounds than an underdeveloped baby is supposed to experience.

The Golden Hour is a term used to describe the crucial hour after delivery. This hour is critical for gathering vitals and stabilizing the newborn and may dictate what the baby’s experience in the NICU will be like. This is the time when important medical interventions like intubation and resuscitation are executed. Even small decisions make big waves during the Golden Hour.

It can be a stressful time for doctors and parents when it is time to take the baby home. Doctors may have concerns about how ready and equipped a parent is to take care of their baby since it’s the first time the parents will be taking care of their baby without any guidance or assistance. When a premature baby is ready to leave the NICU, specialized padding and head supports must be used to support the baby’s neck. Some premature babies may go home with some additional equipment for nutritional or breathing support which may further complicate the parents’ care routine.

Our Solution: The Guardian

The Guardian products consist of a smart mattress, heartbeat bracelet, non-contact monitoring, and adaptable micro-LED screen. Our solutions communicate with each other to ensure the health and safety of the baby. The monitor eliminates the need for tubes and patches on the skin and can recognize when vitals are not ideal, adjusting the ecosystem to fit the baby’s needs; for instance, if the monitor senses that the baby’s temperature is too low it will tell the mattress to increase in temperature. Or to stabilize the baby's head, keeping their endotracheal tube in place.

The Mattress

The Bracelet

The Monitor

When a baby has to move outside of the incubator, they can still be monitored by the detachable component of The Guardian monitor. The removable device can be worn on the finger of the mother and placed in contact with the back of the baby. No adhesives would need to be used, preserving the baby’s skin.

The Screen

Each vital can expand to show a more in-depth set of data from the monitoring system. There is also an electronic tint film that is applied to the incubator, which allows the doctors and nurses to adjust the amount of light the baby is exposed to at any given moment. Both the display and the electronic tint are flexible films that can be retrofitted to existing incubator.

Creating the Ideal NICU Experience with The Guardian

Takeaways:

The Impact:

Strengthened my research skills through various qualitative research methods like Observations and Journey Mapping.
Helped me justify when to use which method and the value in doing so. (Eg: Using Observations as a primer to Interviews, and Journey Mapping after Interviews to understand user's motives and actions more.)

What could be improved?

Utilize more designers and engineers already in the industry to maximize how well these new products retrofit into the existing space.
Conduct user testing with different groups than those we interviewed to have less bias about the product.

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