CAIRA
CAIRA is developing a low-cost medical device and surgical navigation platform that will improve the standard of care for computer-assisted (CA) joint replacement surgery. Their technology tells surgeons what size implant is optimal for the patient and where to place the implant based on the patient's unique bone structure to improve implant positioning during surgery.
Introduction
User Interviews
Our goal for these interviews was to understand the efficiency of the current joint implant navigation software they use. Understand their pain points and frustration. Understand their mental process of when they operate the system.
5 Orthopedic Surgeons
User interviews helped us gain a foundational knowledge about the problems the surgeons were currently facing using the nav system.
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Could you take us through your pre-op plan?
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How long do your knee surgeries usually take with or without navigational tool?
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Tell us your experience with joint replacement technology.
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What kind of navigation tool have you used?
Affinity Mapping
In this stage, we focused on building a persona that best represented the orthopedic surgeon’s need. By organizing quotes and observations about our interviewee’s expectations and behaviors, we discovered trends on what our user needs. Through our user interviews we learned what a user is trying to do and understanding what is and isn’t working for them. We took all that data and made an affinity map to easily visualize our findings.
"With the amount of time I set up the technology, I could’ve been one-third complete with the surgery if I executed manually."
Interview response from Insights
Insights
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Users need to account for the unique needs of patients because these differences inform how they plan and execute surgeries.
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Users want a way to improve their knee surgeries by learning from past surgery data because they don't want to start from scratch each time.
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Users are frustrated with current navigation tools because they add more time in the registration process and pin placement phase.
Persona
After compiling the data from our interviews, we used Affinity Mapping to generate our persona, Aswin
Ashwin is an orthopedic surgeon at NYU Langone Health. He has been in practice for 10 years. On average, he completes 350 knee replacements a year using both technology-assisted and manual techniques. As a patient-centered surgeon, he’s always looking for a way to improve knee surgeries by learning from his past ones. Ashwin assumes that the current navigation tool will speed up the process of his surgery. His daily work schedule is incredibly busy and he has no time to waste.
GOALS
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To save time during surgery
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To perfect knee replacement surgery
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To have a navigational tool that helps him
improve his surgery technique
PAIN POINTS
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Make his surgeries longer
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Has to re-teach his nav tools every surgery
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Locked into an uncustomizable surgical framework
NEEDS
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Reliable data
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A clear line of sight when performing surgery
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Ability to customize procedure based on each patient
BEHAVIORS
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Compares pre-op plan and final results to
improve his technique -
Customizes patient care
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Spends time verifying the navigation tool’s logic
Journey Map
We used a journey mapping technique to visualize and communicate the users end‐to‐end experience across various touchpoints with the scheme. This allowed us to represent user pain‐points and see where we needed to focus our attention. Mapping out the user’s emotions was key to setting client expectations about the aspirational emotional state we were aiming to design for.
OPPORTUNITIES
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To provide a detailed plan of what the surgery will look like
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Develop a surgical tool that has a faster set up
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Needs a surgical tool that helps him make more accurate bone cuts and produces reliable data
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Need a concise report to help them make better decisions in future knee surgeries
Problem Statement
Ashwin is a busy orthopedic surgeon who needs a way to perform faster knee surgeries so that he can finish his scheduled procedures in a timely manner.
How might we help Ashwin reduce his time in surgery?
User Task Flow
Our team created a User Task Flow to prioritize what was needed from the client
The orange dotted frames identify the areas we focused on for our design
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Login: For this initial sprint chose one of the less technical steps in the flow, could give us a good basic idea for the interface design before diving into the more complex areas of the flow
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Timeout :
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Kinematic Assessment 2: Identified the bone visuals as an important part of the project and wanted
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Data Report:
LOGIN
Start
Surgeon Login
Patient Selection
Pre-Op Plan Checkpoint
OR Layout Systen Setup
OR SETUP
Radar Setup
Beacon Setup
Scanner Setup
SURGICAL FLOW
Place Trackers Femur
Place Trackers Tibia
Scan Femur
Femur Registration
TIMEOUT
Timeout Confirm Plan
Femur Distal Resection
Kinematic Assessment 1
Tibia Registration
Scan Tibia
DATA REPORT
Femur 4 in 1 Resection
Tibia Proximal Resection
Tibia Trail Placement
Kinematic Assessment 2
Input soft tissue Release
Input Bone Cut Thickness
Data Report
End
Design Studio
Mid Fidelity
Prototype
Minor Issue
Task 1 : Register Patient for Total Knee Replacement
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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Slider distracted user from ‘Let’s Get Started’ button
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Text hierarchy unclear on the page
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Unclear users need to pick a patient from the list of upcoming appointments
RECOMMENDATIONS
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Add color to “Let’s Get Started” button in high fidelity
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Put “Welcome” and surgeon’s name on the same line so surgeon can quickly identify they are signed into the correct profile
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Change the title of the appointment box to “Select an Upcoming Appointment” to guide the user
Major Issue
Task 2 was give first impression on the overall layout of timeout and post cut kinematics screens
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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Certain values redundant or unnecessary on timeout screen
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Users could not differentiate between patient’s natural knee and the implant on post-cut screen
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Users confused about which step they are on in the procedure
RECOMMENDATIONS
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Remove unnecessary values from timeout page
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Use color to differentiate between patient’s natural knee and implant in high fidelity
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Make step header more obvious by utilizing text hierarchy
High Fidility
Scenario 1:
You are about to perform a total knee replacement surgery on a patient.
Task 1:
Please use CAIRA’S navigation software to register your patient for surgery.
Task 2:
Walk us through how you would adjust your pre-op plan on this page.
Scenario 2:
You are now in the intraoperative phase of the procedure, and are reviewing your pre-cut kinematics.
Task 3
How would you adjust what you are seeing to balance the patient’s knee?