Samantha Applebaum

Overview

This project was for my senior design course at the University of California, Irvine. We were partnered up with Dr. Govind Rajan, an Anesthesiologist from the UCI Medical Center.

Medular is a highly scalable web application that allows OR Managers to provision and de-provision departmental personnel accordingly. The application offers a birds-eye view of the entire operating room infrastructure with the capability to record profile-specific user-input to make changes to the virtualized “grease board” as well as manage employee tasks and breaks.

Group selfie with Project Sponsor, Dr. Rajan.

The Problems

Our Project Sponsor came to us with a set of multiple problems he was currently facing in his operating rooms:

Scheduling Operating Room Staff is hard
Multiple OR Scheduling Softwares in use
Lack of Proper Task Assignments, especially related to handling employee breaks
Constant Phone Communication

The Research

In order to create a solution for Dr. Rajan and his staff, my team needed to gain a better understanding of their current workflow and the problems they face on a daily basis.

We began our research by getting a tour of their facilities and interviewing available staff members.

Interviews and Observations

We spent countless hours and sessions communicating with Dr. Rajan and his fellow staff members to understand their daily work flow.

Personas

OR Staffing Administrator

Dr. Jessica Flores, Age: 59

Dr. Jessica Flores is an OR Staffing Administrator at the UCI Medical Center. She has been in the field for about 29 years. She is happily married and has 1 daughter who is also studying to be an Anesthesiology . In her free time, she enjoys doing karaoke with her husband and daughter.

Anesthesiologist Attending

Dr. William Blake, Age: 53

Dr. William Blake is an anesthesiology attending at the UCI Medical Center. He has been in the field for about 25 years. He is happily married with 2 sons and 1 daughter, the last of whom has just entered a local college. In his free time, he enjoys playing golf and hanging out with his wife and kids. While at work is one of the more social attendings, always checking in on everybody. He loves his job and the people he works with.

Anesthesiologist Resident

Jake Chen, Age: 27

Jake is a first year resident for Anesthesiology. He recently graduated from UCSF Medical school. As a new member of the UCI Medical Center Anesthesiology department, Jake spends a lot of time getting to know his new co-workers and learning as much as he can from his mentors. In his free time, Jake enjoys hanging out with his friends and playing video games.

Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist

Jane Fletcher, Age: 36

Jane is a Senior CRNA at the UCI Medical Center after having worked there since the beginning of her career. While not the most tech savvy, she is able to figure her way around the computer systems at the Hospital. Jane recently married the father of her two young daughters. In her free time, she bakes desserts with her daughters and enjoys the time she gets to spend with her family.