07. National Institute of Health - PediSedate
Enabling kids to control their hospital experience Hospital environments and pediatric anesthetization equipment often cause unnecessary trauma for children. One doctor's vision to improve quality of care for his patients led to an anesthetic gas delivery system, designed for children to reduce the fear surrounding medical procedures.
Continuum was asked to create an anesthetic gas delivery system for children ages 3 to 8 years old that would help reduce the fear associated with medical procedures that require anesthesia. Designers met with a panel including anesthesiologists, nurses, parents, children, and psychologists that provided caregiver, expert and user perspectives. Additionally, hospital visits were made to gather thoughts and stories from both acute and chronic care patients. These discussions established a better understanding of the environment and users of this device, and challenged old beliefs. The initial belief was that children would prefer to be shut out from a frightening environment, and that avoidance would help mitigate the fear; however, findings revealed that education and understanding plus control over the experience eased anxiety. This insight enabled Continuum to design a product that is fun and engaging, helping instruct the child and give them the option to tune in or tune out, which is an important level of control of the experience. In addition to added benefits to the child, were attractive benefits to the heath care provider to ensure its use. Features such as capnometry and pulse oximetry were found to add greater functional value to the device. After weeks of clinical trials, the product has been extremely well received. Both children and heath care professionals have enthusiastically welcomed PediSedate into their procedures.
"Continuum did a fantastic job transforming the idea for PediSedate into an attractive, fun, entertaining product for children and providing healthcare workers with a state-of-the-art anesthesia monitoring and delivery system." — Geoffrey A. Hart, M.D., NIH-funded inventor
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