Simplifying laparoscopic surgery for surgeons and nurses
ROLE
UX/UI Designer
TIMELINE
Jan '21 - Mar '21
TEAM
Nadya Salim
PLATFORM
Electrosurgical Generator
VOYANT
OVERVIEW
Designing an electrosurgical generator for laparoscopic surgery
As a vertically integrated medical device company, Applied Medical's goal is to improve the affordability and accessibility of high-quality healthcare. With the upcoming release of the Voyant line's 3rd generation electrosurgical generator, a new UI was needed to include new features and improvements upon the previous generator. I worked along side engineering, clinical development, surgeons, and medical practitioners to ideate, design, test, and release an advanced medical device shipped with an intuitive and modern UI.
WHAT IS VOYANT?
The Applied Medical intelligent energy system
Voyant is an advanced bipolar system that dynamically adapts to live human tissue during surgery to provide optimal energy output for operations such as cutting tissue and coagulating blood vessels. The generator supplies the electricity while the different attachments and modalities affect how that electricity is delivered to the tissue.
SOLUTION
An interface that strikes the balance between hardware and software
More ports, more flexibility
Enjoy the flexibility of up to four modalities plugged in at once. In partition mode, get a holistic view for all your power settings. The UI is split into quadrants that tie to their corresponding ports on the generator.
THE PROBLEMS
Users struggle with navigating the UI
The 2nd gen UI used four physical buttons as the only points of interaction with the device which greatly diminished its level of usability and flexibility. The buttons would map to different functions depending on the screen which affected users’ mental models, hindered the ease-of-use, and increased the time it took a user to complete an action.
Voyant Maryland Fusion
Voyant 5mm Fusion
Voyant Fine Fusion
Voyant Electrosurgical Generator Gen 2
Voyant Open Fusion
Voyant Intelligent Technology
THE VOYANT LINE
Active-only mode to focus on the task at hand
In active-only mode, the screen dynamically changes to only display the modalities plugged in, removing unnecessary filler and allowing you to focus on what’s in your hand.
User profiles for quick switching between different surgeons
Customize user profiles for each person's power settings and mode preferences
Adjust modaliy settings even when they're not plugged in
In active-only mode, the screen dynamically changes to display only what is plugged in, removing unnecessary filler and allowing you to focus on what’s in your hand
Other work
Surgeon
Nurse
Technician
OUR USERS
Building for surgeons, nurses, and technicians
The main users for this device are surgeons that perform tissue surgery on patients. Nurses also use the machine to configure and prepare the machine for surgery before the surgeon comes in. Technicians perform routine generator maintenance for output verification.
Plugging-in and unplugging attachments is cumbersome and slows down surgery
The 2nd gen generator was a plug and play device that only had one port. This made it simple to understand but laboursome to actually use. Surgeons often use multiple modalities and attachments during a surgery and the process of plugging and unplugging attachments adds time and frustration to surgery.
CONCLUSION
Based on usability testing and feedback we found:
1. Increased user satisfaction
"This saves so much headache when I'm busy managing a million other things" - Surgeon
2. Decreased time spent changing attachments and settings
"Not having to swap attachments is my new favorite feature" - Surgeon
3. Improved handoff between surgeons and nurses
"This feels miles easier to set up for my surgeon before the procedure" - Nurse
A couple main screens from the gen 2 electrosurgical generator
Movn Health
Improving patient outcomes through enhanced communication systems
No easy way to change modality power output settings when changing between different surgeons.
Each hospital usually only has one electrosurgical generator that is shared among its staff. With the frequent switching of users and modalities, they have to reconfigure the device to their preferred settings every time before they use it. Every change required many button clicks before they could begin using it.
TAKEAWAYS
Work within the constraints
This was one of those projects where technical limitations kept on popping up. It didn't matter how elegant or smart a design is - if it can't be implemented then it isn't real. Learning to be realistic and maintaining constant communication with engineering was key in building this product.