Case Study: Human Factors in the Product Design of the Physician Lab Coat rev 12052024

1. 2 Human Factors in the Product Design of the White Lab Coat This discussion examines human cognitive and physical abilities and limitations and the application of that knowledge to the design of the white lab coat. This body of knowledge collected can be used to understand the context of interactions, elements, and systems surrounding the use and design of the white lab coat. The reevaluation of the physician's task and job, along with the product's environment and systems presented opportunities to optimize human well-being; advance the design technology of the lab coat; and improve overall system performance (Lee et al., 2017). Introduction Quickfire Challenge to Re-Imagine the Lab Coat The physician's white lab coat hasn't changed substantially for over 200 years (Johnson and Johnson, 2018). Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS, collaborates with entrepreneurs, subject-matter experts, and enables innovators through a global network. JLABS published a quickfire challenge or competition to re-imagine the design, materials, and solutions of the white lab coat of the future (Johnson and Johnson, 2018). UT2 Design, the design division of Urbanetectonics, LLC, answered this challenge and designed a new concept for a lab coat (Urbanetectonics, 2018). The lab coat research, design development, and project management followed a process map (Bokally, 2018). This process map, in correlation with a baseline understanding of the interacting core systems at play, provided a framework to convey insights about the challenges facing today's physicians (Bokally, 2018). Discussion Function, Comfort, and Gender Considerations

2. 3 The white lab coat is a garment worn in a medical, lab, or experimental setting by a physician, doctor, scientist, or even an engineer (National Institutes of Health, 2016). A physician can be a doctor, but not all doctors are physicians. Physicians are licensed to prescribe medicine to humans and perform human-based medical procedures. The white lab coat is considered personal protection equipment (PPE) at work and is designed for human beings (Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, 2024). The use of the white lab coat has been common place for so long and the industries for which it serves are being disrupted by technology so fast. The various efforts to understand the history and to improve the garment are necessary to update this garment's varying parameters of protection for the user. The winner of the quickfire challenge really leaned into increasing the safety rating of the product and to the user by introducing innovative smart fabric materials. The team tested a prototype successfully. Our concept hadn't gotten that far. The winning solution focused on function, work physiology, safety, biomechanics, and biotechnology (Johnson and Johnson, 2018). With a growing knowledge-base of health systems; human factors engineering; and product design, I can understand in hindsight, more now than I did then, just how different their approach was to our firm's lab coat design submittal (Bokally, 2018). In contrast, our firm focused on gender body measurements, aesthetic perceptions, user-comfort, and technology accommodations (Urbanetectonics, 2018). Let's re-examine the basis of this approach and how the product design of the lab coat might be further improved to support physician activities. Body dimensions considered in the digital body wire-frame were stature height, stature width, chest depth, sitting body height, sitting eye height, thigh clearance height, knee height, buttock knee-length, popliteal height, elbow rest height, sitting shoulder width, and sitting body length of the man and the women. At the time, the rule of thumb of designing for extreme,

3. 4 average, or adjustable populations or assuming 95% male and 5% women had not been used (Lee et al., 2017). Fig. 1.        (Urbanetectonics, 2018). According to the AAMC’s 2017 Physician Specialty Data Reports, women physicians make up 35.2% of the physician's workforce (Boyle, 2021). This increase in women in the industry may have contributed to the trend towards wearing office clothes and comfortable scrubs instead of the white coat. This trend indicates that a white coat doesn't have to be the color white or be the single image of patient safety and physician identification. Cognition, Perception & Symbolism The changing of the cloak in the 20thcentury to be white aligned with the profession's scientific emergence. The white lab coat then represented the “whiteness” or “purity” of the profession (Hochberg, 2002). It carried with it authority and respect. Today, it is a “cloak of compassion” symbolizing what is considered good medical care and realized hopes of good health (Garnett et al., 2023).

4. 5 Turns out that even if the wearing of the white lab coat has declined, the professional physical appearance of the physician, doctor, or scientist does weigh heavily in the minds of the patients, clients, or those being served. Patients and industry peers have confidence in the white lab coat and cognitively perceive the white lab coat as an indication of the wearer's competence and credibility (Kazory, 2008). Fig. 2.           This drawing shows the garment's body movements (Urbanetectonics, 2018). Our firm's solution to the quickfire challenge considered the lab coat color options for women. It leaned into the colors preferred and often used for scrubs (Lahren, 2021). This new lab coat would have options in gray, turquoise, and blue. It would taper to the body and have stylish sleeves. It would solve functional problems and be aesthetically distinctive.

5. 6 Fig. 3          This design board shows the garment's color selections (Urbanetectonics, 2018). Safety, Stress, and Workload Despite the increased diversity in the field, physicians still report some of the highest levels of stress and demanding workloads (Kancherlaet et al., 2020). The foundational PPE safety element in the lab garment has become equal to the concern for the physical fitness of the wearer (Gates et al., 2018). To better understand the user, we examined a typical day for a physician (Middleton, 2019). After examining physician needs and work culture, six user- centered problems were selected for the firm's lab coat design solution (Crosswell et al., 2020). Listed below are six physician problems and the type of solution the firm's lab coat recommends: 1. Problems: Functional use, comfort for long hours, and sanitation concerns.

6. 7 Design recommendation: Light weight, stretch, wrinkle-free, chemical resistant, and stain resistant fabric. Seam hidden zipper from breast to hip that offers a tapered waist or a relaxed fit. Seam hidden zipper in the sleeve that offers a slim or secure roll up bell sleeve. 2. Problem: Doctors need flexibility to secure their personal items. Design recommendation: Dual-purpose inside pockets, outside pockets, and side pockets. 3. Problems: Customer service, safety, transparency, and identification. Design recommendation: Location for a digital name tag. 4. Problem: Lab coat that is gender sensitive with style options. Design recommendation: Women's W2R2 Utility Lab Coat wrap around wrinkle-free, reversible, and resistant. 5. Problems: Doctors need a place to carry physician tools to serve patients. They require a place for technological hardware (Khairat et al., 2020). Design recommendation: Utility hooks in the thigh. A highly concealed pocket for doctor's tools and electronics. Secure an electronic stethoscope with loops under the collar. 6. Problem: The doctor's white coat's blinding reflectivity in the operating room (Hochberg, 2002). Design recommendation: Doctor's white coat with reversible zipper offers color options in three popular hues of teal, gray, and turquoise. In the figurative images in this document, you can see the graphic representation of each design recommendation on the lab coat garment. You can also see the digital wire-frame and motion studies (Urbanetectonics, 2018).

7. 8 Technology and Wearable Health Tech Our firm's lab coat design made accommodations for the use of mobile hand held technology. The winner had a tested prototype (Johnson and Johnson, 2018). Could our prototype design show iterative uses of technology that could enhance the physician's work flow, the doctor's office management, and patients' care experience? Using human factors engineering; the design of an experiment to receive participant user feedback; and iterative analysis of a prototype would be key to new and better solutions to the working problems and pain points of a physician (Lee et al., 2017). Using engineering technology to monitor physicians' physical and mental fitness inside a lab coat garment is a solution that has recently come to mind (Mack, 2016). I recently purchased a McMillan jacket from Home Depot (O’Hop, 2022). I am iron-deficient anemic and the winter months in the Midwest can be challenging. The jacket is like a walking electric blanket. It has an interface on the chest of the jacket to turn it on and off. The interface has three levels of heat to choose from. It is wearable technology. What if there could be a lab coat with a human to software interface that signals concerning mental workloads before a noticeable drop in physician performance? This could guard patient safety and improve the performance of the working systems overall. If we could make the monitoring simple as wearing a lab coat garment, light in weight, and with an acceptable level of physical invasion. This interface could somehow connect to the human job- interface of technology software that controls the office website and scheduling widgets, and project workflow expectations. An interface that offers improvement in performance could trigger fatigue or work load violations. In order for wearable technology in the lab coat to work, the garment would have to be scientifically and systematically designed to work under

8. 9 supervisory control. The goals would remain lodged in patient safety, safety of the human operator, user satisfaction, improved system performance or physician performance in the system. The user has to like wearing the lab coat and find its features extremely useful (Lee et al., 2017). Conclusion In conclusion, I believe the main reason the firm's design concept did not contend successfully with the winner of the JLABS Quickfire lab coat challenge was because we didn't have a tested prototype (Johnson and Johnson 2018). If the firm was able to take their efforts a step further by using human factors in engineering to design an experiment or experiments. Create a viable prototype, then test the usability of the prototype design (Urbanetectonics, 2018). The design recommendations demonstrated in the lab coat garment prototype would have the proof of concept and the credibility inherent in the winner of the JLABS Quickfire lab coat challenge (Taylor, 1967). In the video that accompanies this term paper document, there is a discussion about additional human factors in engineering that would be relevant to these said corrective steps and experiment(s) for the proposed prototype.

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