Sleep is essential to prevent and recover from disease and delirium. Critically ill patients admitted to an Intensive care (IC), medium care (MC) or cardiac care (CC) unit often sleep insufficiently. External stimuli such as light, alarms and other sounds, personnel and lack of privacy are important causes. As a result the IC/MC and CC environment is often experienced as disruptive. In addition, patients being awake at night increase nurses’ workload. 

"We believe that the MAYA will improve quality of sleep, and reduce delirium, agitation, stress and fear."

The MAYA is an innovative “hood”, developed by Micro-Cosmos, which can be placed over the head of the hospital bed. With the MAYA, the Micro-Cosmos start-up aims to create an micro-environment where patients are able to exclude disruptive external stimuli. We believe that the MAYA will improve quality of sleep, and reduce delirium, agitation, stress and fear. In our project, we will use a pilot study to determine the feasibility of the MAYA with critically ill patients. We will also explore patient’s experiences and the experiences of nurses,  and determine MAYA’s effects on sleep, fear, stress, agitation, delirium, light and sound. By positively influencing the hospital environment, we hope the MAYA will contribute to an improvement of quality of care for vulnerable and critically ill patients. 

For this project, Micro-Cosmos collaborates with the IC of the Radboudumc. Micro-Cosmos consists of Eef Lamers (master in Physics and Astronomy) and Skip Kandelaar (Industrial Product Designer). Both strive to improve patient care with innovative technology. From the Radboudumc, dr. Bram Tilburgs and dr. Mark van den Boogaard are involved. Both are former ICU nurses and researchers with a special interest in patient-centred care, patients comfort, delirium and long term consequences of an ICU admission. Within this collaboration, Micro-Cosmos provides the MAYA and trains IC/MC/CC nurses in its use. The Radboudumc researchers include patients, gather and analyse data.  

During this project, an innovative product is being tested in an environment with very high demands. In the ICU, MC and CC, nurses and physicians should be able to observe patients easily and, in an emergency, approach patients from all sides. Deploying a product in such an environment requires a lot of insights in the workflow of healthcare professionals. Before the start of this project, such information was not yet available. The Micro-Cosmos team therefore first had to study the ICU, MC and CC in great detail before the MAYA could be used with critically ill patients.

While the collaborators were focusing on the development of the MAYA and preparing the research protocols, they were also confronted with unforeseen complications. Just before the start of the study the hospital beds were replaced by a different model. Because of this, the MAYA had to be adjusted. This shows that, in large organizations, it is important to involve all stakeholders when projects are being prepared. 

The information and data gathered with this project, is used to further improve the MAYA. If quality of sleep can be improved, patients recover faster and may experience less complications. As a result, length of stay and thus healthcare costs may be reduced and quality of care will improve. 

"During our project, it became clear how important it is to gain insights from all the different stakeholders, because the questions raised can only bring you further."

Our object consists of an artistic impression of the collaboration between different healthcare professionals, product designers, business developers and many more. All these different stakeholders have different views and together it has to come together in one product. At first it might seem impossible to meet all the demands, which symbolizes this object. During our project, it became clear how important it is to gain insights from all the different stakeholders, because the questions raised can only bring you further.