A&E is a highly complex, varied and fast-paced environment, with over 25 million attendances each year in England alone. With complaints from clinicians about slow computers in A&E, we decided to get under the covers and spent several weeks in A&E to find out what was really going on. Our research was conducted across three major emergency departments and included ethnography, interviews and a time and motion study. From this we reimagined how clinicians interact with IT and co-designed a prototype solution. Our joint objectives were to reduce clinician stress and frustration, whilst improving efficiency, patient flow, and patient care. In this talk we share our approach to discovery, the key insights from the heart of A&E, and how we co-designed a solution that strongly resonated with the users.
