In collaboration with healthcare professionals at Medisch Centrum Leeuwarden (MCL), team 8D is working on an innovative “experience route” in the hospital. The goal: to encourage patients in MCL’s cardiovascular unit to exercise more. Often patients underestimate what they can still do physically, while appropriate exercise can significantly enhance rehabilitation.
The intervention will soon be implemented as a pilot in the cardiology department, with the intention of making the concept modular enough so that it can later be used in other departments – or in other hospitals.
Johan likes to think along!
Getting enough exercise and occasionally using your brain is important for our physical health and mental well-being. This is common knowledge. Even during a hospital stay, it is often conducive to recovery when patients keep up appropriate exercise and feel good mentally. However, physical therapists Elmer de Wit and Jelly Hoekstra, both working at MCL, found that the hospital environment is not really set up to promote (calm) exercise.
Indeed, the opposite is true: meals are usually served at the bedside, examinations are often performed while patients remain seated in wheelchairs or beds, and the rooms and corridors have a sterile, inactive décor. To address this, MCL Innovation decided to develop an intervention aimed at creating an “exercise hospital. Team 8D was brought in to help with concept development and implementation.
ApproachJohan van der Meulen (8D Games) led a brainstorming session to establish the practical frameworks for the intervention. During this session, all strict design requirements were defined, such as adaptability, different levels and integration within existing infrastructures. Key outcomes: the intervention had to be scalable and adaptable – as well as suitable for patients with various exercise levels and mobility abilities.
Based on the results of the Problem Storm, Team 8D developed several creative concepts. After the idea phase, we weighed all the pros and cons of the concepts. And most importantly, the extent to which the concept would meet the project goals and hard requirements. A modular “experience route” with QR codes proved the best fit. With each QR code, patients get access to engaging, educational or inspirational content about health and wellness during the (Frisian) Middle Ages. In addition, each point of interest includes a video, created by physical therapists, with exercise instructions tailored to different levels of difficulty.
The advantage of this type of route is that healthcare professionals can always recommend a specific route that matches the patient’s exercise needs and abilities. For example, the patient may perform three exercises one day, six the next, or follow a particular sequence that is conducive to their recovery. The “museum content” stimulates curiosity and contributes to mental well-being. There is also something to do in the hospital!
ResultsThe project is in the implementation phase. The next step is to strengthen support among caregivers and volunteers. 8D works with the project initiators and the people at the bedside to explore what they need to embed the pathway in their daily practice. We cannot come up with this for them; it has to come from the shop floor. That involvement and dialogue is crucial to ensuring that the experience route actually comes to the attention of patients, just as it did during the development of the prototype.
The intervention will soon be implemented as a pilot in the cardiology department at MCL. If successful, the plan is to roll out the concept in other departments-or, if interested, in other hospitals!
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