How hospitals can help patients get to appointments on time.

Getting around a hospital can be very difficult. There are many signs that try to be helpful by showing strange names like Endocrinology (Hormones) and Otorhinolaryngology (Ear, Nose, Throat).  When you ask for directions, people often say things like “go the West side of the building”.  Without a compass, this kind of information is as helpful as directions in Venice that tell you to walk straight.

While doctors and nurses who work in the hospital may know their way around, it is very difficult for everyone else.  Most visitors to a hospital are there for the first time and a usually under a heightened state of stress and or pain.  Additionally after people are admitted to a bed, they have to give directions to friends and family to come visit.  This creates a blind leading the blind situation.

To solve this problem, most hospitals post maps around the building like this excerpt from the Stanford Hospital.

Map shows Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital

To get someplace, you look at the map, find the, “You are here sticker”, find where you are going from the list of strange sounding names and then figure out which way to walk.  After walking for a while you may recheck the map to make sure you are still headed in the right direction.  This whole process can take 10 minutes which is time you do not have when you are late for an appointment.  In communication theory, the process of reading a map is called decoding.  Most people do not encode maps quickly under stress.

Instead, hospitals should take advantage of people’s natural ability to follow a linear path and paint lines on the floor.  Instead of saying, “Go past Radiology, right at Endocrinology and left at Obstetrics” people would give directions by saying, “Blue Line 45”.

Here is how it would work.  A hospital like Stanford should paint lines on the floor similar to a subway.  The green line would lead to Cardiology while the yellow line would go to Labor and Delivery.  Colors that are difficult for people who are colorblind should be avoided.  In addition to the painted lines, a numbering system should be used similar to house addresses or freeway exits.  Zero should start at one end and then numbers for each yard should be used.  If one office is at zero, then the next office 21 feet away would be at 7.

Colored lines help you get around the hospital quickly.

When giving directions to someone, all you have to say is Green Line 79 and people would instantly be able to find the location.  The numbers will tell you if you have to go up or down the line and maps would show you where to transfer.  Each major entrance to the hospital would have a sign that shows you the shortest path to each of the lines from that entrance.

By adopting this numbered subway system, hospitals can make it easier for first time visitors to get around especially during a time of personal stress.  Not only would this make life easier for patients, but it would also cut down on unproductive time caused by late appointments.  This would also be helpful to suppliers, contractors and new interns would be able to reach their destination quicker.  Additionally, hospital staff would spend less time giving directions and could spend more time providing patient care.

How to save time online.

Most people start their day in the office by reading the news online.  Each person may have a favorite site that aggregates the news   You read the lists of articles and then click on the link that you find interesting.  The problem is that on each news page there are multiple links to other sources of information.

You may start off reading a story about a river rising causing flooding and the page could have an add for river rafting trips.  You click on the link which takes you to a river rafting site.  Before you know it, you are looking at pictures from last seasons guided trips.  This causes you to waste time reading something that you were not interested in when you started to read the news.

A link may take you to interesting pages that are not important.

To solve this problem, browsers like Google Chrome should allow you to set up boundaries on what you read.  Here is how it would work.  You choose one or two sites that you want to read during the day.  Google Chrome should allow you to go to your favorite news sites and to follow links away from the news site.  As soon as you click on a link on the news article that would take you to a third page, the browser would delay the loading of the page by 30 seconds. If the link is really important.  You will read it.  If the link is not that important, you will probably have gotten back to work by the time the page opens.

Google Chrome prevents you from wasting time online.

By setting up the boundaries ahead of time, you make a promise to yourself before you have the temptation about clicking on something that would just waste your time.  This feature would ultimately save you time by limiting your Internet usage to just reading the news during working hours.  The same technique could be used for Facebook.  You could decide that you only want to spend 30 minutes on Facebook during the day.  A timer would keep track each time you log on and would tell you how many minutes you have left.  At the end of 30 minutes you have to wait until the next day to find out what your friends had for dinner.

How heater manufacturers can improve the effectiveness of heaters.

Ever notice how your electricity bill tends to increase during the winter?  One of the major uses of electricity in the winter is for portable electric heaters.  In a typical situation, people will place the heater in a cold room that usually has a window and turn the heater on.  If the room is still cold, they will turn the heater higher.  What most people do not know is that if the heater is far away from the window, much of the heat from the heater can end up at the ceiling while the floor remains cold.  The reasons for this, is that cold air from the window falls while hot air from the heater rises creating a circulation pattern.  See the picture below:

As you can see, when the heater is placed away from the window, the ceiling is hot while the floor is cold.  To solve this problem, the heater should be place near the window.  The warm air from the heater will rise, be slightly cooled by the window, move across the ceiling and then fall down the opposite wall and heat the floor.  This sets up a natural circulation that evenly heats the room.  Architects know this and if you look at the placement of floor vents in a house or a hotel room you will notice that the heater is always placed below the window.  See picture below:

As the picture shows, the cold air near the window is heated before it enters the room and the air on the floor comes from the ceiling  rather than from the window.  Heater manufactures should use the Behavioral Science concept of Anchoring to recommend to customers where to place the heater for maximum comfort.  When people place a heater in the room, their first choice will be near the window based because of the labeling on the heater.  Today people are given no recommendations and the probability that the heater will end up near the window is low.

By anchoring people to the concept of placing heaters near windows, heater manufacturers can help customers heat a room evenly and reduce electricity use. This will ultimately reduce the overall cost of ownership of the heater as well as increase the perception of effectiveness of the heater.

Warning:  There should always be adequate space between a heater and any loose cloth like drapes.  Also not that this concept is not as applicable to heaters with fans.

Special thanks to Leura Greunke for the trigger for this concept.