Cone Health: Deep human understanding gives rise to new Women & Children’s hospital.

The need: Despite a deeply invested and expert staff, the Women’s Hospital was severely outdated--the building had been designed for a different era of child-birthing and recovery. A new facility needed to be built. Cone’s leadership realized the opportunity to advance systems thinking—not just physical layout. How could we approach staffing differently? What should the patient experience be, and what would inform that experience?

The approach: IX’s team undertook weeks of naturalistic observation, getting to know nurses personally as we shadowed their shifts, joined them outside of work for coffee, and hung out in the break rooms, taking in the nuances of the day-in, day-out workflow. We followed and got to know patient families from registration through delivery into recovery and discharge. After weeks of analysis and synthesis, we presented to the expanded leadership team and guided them from learning to strategic responses. 

The result: In accordance with our research findings and design principles, the new Women’s Hospital opened in February of 2020, and the new principles, systems, and concepts have already reshaped how Cone cares for its community—and vice versa. “Just about every detail in this hospital is evidence of the impact of IX’s work.”