Hospital Bed Touch Interface With Real-Time Graphical Feedback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional patient support user modules are cumbersome and non-intuitive, leading to inefficiencies and user frustration due to inadequate feedback and complex interfaces, particularly in healthcare settings where clear and concise control of therapeutic features is crucial.
Innovation Solution
A patient support system with a user module featuring a dynamic display and touch-sensitive controls, integrated with hardpanel controls, providing a graphical user interface that includes real-time feedback and easy-to-understand graphical elements, allowing caregivers to control bed functions and therapy features efficiently.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Stability of the object's composition
If conventional user modules are fixed in or coupled to siderail or footboard, then device stability is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates due to non-intuitive design and cumbersome usage
Solution Approach 1:
The user module incorporates a dynamic display that automatically updates in real-time based on patient support status, therapy parameters, and system events. This dynamic nature allows the interface to adapt to different operational states without requiring physical reconfiguration, thereby maintaining device stability while dramatically improving ease of operation through context-aware presentation of information.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements comprehensive real-time feedback mechanisms where the display continuously shows patient support status, therapy parameters, alarm conditions, and system events. This immediate feedback loop allows caregivers to verify their input selections and monitor patient conditions without leaving the bedside, resolving the contradiction between stable device mounting and intuitive operation.
2Loss of information
If conventional user modules provide extensive informational content on compact displays, then information completeness is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates due to difficulty in verifying single changed parameters
Solution Approach 1:
The display interface is segmented into distinct functional areas including patient support status, therapy parameters, alarm conditions, and system events. Each section can be independently monitored and controlled, allowing caregivers to quickly locate and verify specific changed parameters without being overwhelmed by a monolithic display of all information. This segmentation maintains information completeness while dramatically improving operational ease.
Solution Approach 2:
The display dynamically adjusts its content and layout based on current system state, prioritizing display of changed parameters and active therapies. This dynamic reorganization ensures that the most relevant information is always prominently displayed, maintaining completeness of information while making it easily operable through context-aware presentation.
3Measurement precision
If conventional user modules require fluency in particular language for understanding, then information precision is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates due to language barriers
Solution Approach 1:
The interface employs graphical icons and visual indicators with distinct local qualities that convey specific meanings independent of language. For example, graphical representations of patient position, therapy types, and alarm conditions provide precise information delivery that is universally understandable, resolving the contradiction between information precision and ease of operation across language barriers.
4Adaptability or versatility
If conventional user modules have complex interfaces, then functionality versatility is improved, but device complexity increases leading to user frustration
Solution Approach 1:
The user module serves multiple functions through a unified interface: monitoring patient support status, controlling therapies, managing alarms, and providing system feedback. This universal design approach consolidates diverse functionalities into a single coherent interaction model, maintaining versatility while reducing perceived complexity by eliminating the need to learn multiple separate control systems.
Data Source
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AI summary
A user module (42) for a patient support apparatus (10) is provided. The user module has a user interface operably coupled thereto. The user interface includes an input device (48) and an output device (46). The output device includes a visual display including textual and non-textual elements. The non-textual elements include enhanced, graphical, and animated portions relating to one or more operational features of the patient support or to a person positionable on the patient support. The input device includes one or more touch sensors corresponding to defined regions of the visual display.