Tailoring Medical Consultations in Orthopaedics
Managing patient expectations within a 10-minute consultation is challenging. The assignment in this graduation project was to develop a product or service that helps orthopaedists and patients effectively discuss the patient’s personal expectations of the rehabilitation period. Ultimate aim is to have the patient develop realistic expectations resulting in confident and responsible rehabilitation behaviour.
The BiConnect is an application providing tools and visuals to support the explanation of treatment options and to discuss the patient’s personal expectations during orthopaedic consultations. The application is tailored towards four patient types, mainly based on their coping behaviour during rehabilitation: the achiever, the analyst, the realist and the sentimentalist.
The application is used by patients as well as orthopaedists at different touch points throughout the patient experience journey. The patient has a digital intake that contributes to a better preparation of patient and orthopaedist. During the consultation BiConnect serves as a supportive tool for communication and after the consultation patients can review personal advice given during the consultation and look up more information.
This project was also the starting point of Tailored Healthcare, a double PhD programme which investigates how patient satisfaction can be improved by tailoring the care as far as possible to suit the individual patient.