Ethnography Report on BMC Waiting Room
Liang Zhang
Observing in the waiting room of Boston Medical Center Geriatric Clinic for one
hour is an interesting experience. We try to figure out what patients usually do
during their waiting time and what are they response to Tanya, the relational
agent kiosk. The most important thing we found was that patient didn’t usually
engage with the agent. That’s because of several things, but one specially was
that they don’t feel any need to use it.
The observation began on Wednesday at 10 o’clock in the morning, which it’s said
to be a busy time that most patients meet their appointments. During that time,
there were approximately 10 patients came to see their doctors. That seems not
very busy comparing to the situation in China. And the waiting room always had
empty seats. Besides observing, we also conducted two semi-structured
interviews, which talked about the waiting experience, the agent and ways to
improve.
We found some problems that were related to kiosk:
l The
Position
The kiosk was place in
the corner of entrance of the waiting room, where it’s very easy to neglect.
Because when people walk in, most of them were facing to front desk and signed
up for their doctor, and then they just seat opposite to the front desk. In this
whole process, it’s very easy to miss the existence of the kiosk.
I think it’s better if
kiosk can be move to the place where there was a welcome green plant which is
next to the front desk. So most patients would find out there were something
else interesting in this waiting room.
l The
Height
The height of the screen
of the kiosk is adjustable, also the kiosk is moveable. But most of the patients
will not try to adjust it to fit them (but they would turn the volume). After a
trail, a patient told us that “It’s hard for us to stand for a long time.” So it
suggested that we should improve the interaction position. The simple way is to
place a seat in front of the kiosk. But it will block the entrance.
l The Schedule
We found out that the
biggest problem that the patients were facing is their schedule. Patients were
usually told to take a seat and wait patiently, and without knowing how long
would they have to wait. Their schedules were very easy to affect. For example,
if the doctor was late then schedule of every patient that had an appointment
with he/she had to postpone. Or if their interpreter was late then their meeting
was late too.
So the kiosk is better to
have a feature that can predict how long a patient needs to wait. The prediction
can be made by gather info of how long the doctor has been with his/her patient
and usually how long the doctor needs to finish an appointment. Although this
can’t be rocket science, that’s a great help for patients.
l The Interruption
We discovered that
patients here were very likely to be interrupted by the front desk. They have to
listen to their calls very carefully. Meanwhile the kiosk’s conversation seems
to be a little bit longer. They want to know something related to their health.
Because we seen patients read those health flyers. So we guess if we can shorten
the conversation and provide some easy talk that would be a release for patient
to wait and still focus on their doctor’s calling.