Investigating User Requirements: A Participant Observation Study to Define the Information Needs at a Hospital Reception.

The hospital reception (HR) is one of the first contact points for information about treatment stays, visits, or administrative matters, and thus has influence on the perceived hospital quality. In Dec. 2022, we investigated the information needs during a one week participant observation of the entrance hall at a rural Bavarian hospital. We aim to understand the HRs information needs and how these requests are answered. Previous studies show that the information needs can vary significantly among patients, visitors and employees, impacting the overall hospital experience. There is a lack of research on the information requirements at hospital receptions, with most studies focusing on emergency admissions. In our literature search, we couldn’t locate studies that addressed information needs at a hospital reception. We conducted a participant observation using a standardized form. Over the seven day observation period, N = 1,499 requests were made at HR. The requests were examined by summarizing qualitative content analysis in different categories about locations or concerns. Visitors account for 51.3% (n = 769) of all requests, followed by patients at 38.5% (n = 577), employees at 5.3% (n = 79), and other stakeholder at 1.6% (n = 24). The highest utilization of the reception is due to visitors showing a COVID-19 test certificate (n = 289) and asking the reception staff for a patient room number (n = 204). Patients most frequently asked about their appointment registration (n = 148), the procedure in case of an emergency (n = 98), and orientation (n = 79). The minor requests came from employees in the form of administrative requests like borrowing keys (n = 39). On average, the staff needs 65 s to attend to one person. New technologies, like service robots in the entrance hall, can reduce the number of requests in the future. Our study helps to meet user needs through designing service robots. Follow-up studies are planned to validate our findings.