Understanding Stakeholders’ Needs for an Emergency Mobile Hospital at an Infectious Disease Situation

Our society suffers from unpredictable global pandemics such as COVID-19. Thus, the demand for emergency mobile hospitals for infectious diseases has greatly increased. However, the existing mobile hospitals have been developed mainly focusing on functional requirements. There is a lack of understanding of the needs of different stakeholders in a pandemic situation. This paper presents the stakeholders’ needs for designing an emergency mobile negative pressure ward hospital to be used in an infectious disease situation. We conducted two studies with diverse stakeholders related to an infectious disease; 1) an interview study with 12 long-term patients in order to figure out the needs of patients, 2) a Co-design workshop study with 3 medical staff, 4 management staff, 3 engineers, and designers. The findings revealed three main needs for emotional support for patients in terms of reducing mental anxiety, improvement of the clinic environment, and increasing trust in the clinic. Also, there were findings related to managing mobile hospitals for reducing infection risk with delivering fast care of medical staff, effective operational support for manage staff, and designing to consider both medical staff and patient. We discuss the design insight and considerations for the design of emergency mobile hospitals for infectious diseases. Our work provides insights on how the user’s perspective can be reflected in designing emergency mobile hospitals for the pandemic crisis.