A double diamond model-based design and evaluation method for medical transfer beds

This study aims to improve patient experience and healthcare professionals' operational efficiency during patient transfer by proposing an integrated design and evaluation method for medical transfer beds within the Double Diamond framework.First, initial user requirements were identified through User Journey Map (UJM) analysis and multi-stakeholder interviews to explore key challenges and potential design needs during the medical transfer process. Subsequently, the Kano model was applied to classify the attributes of user requirements, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to determine the priority weights of critical design requirements. Based on these results, Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was adopted to establish the relationship between user requirements and product technical characteristics, thereby providing guidance for the development of innovative design solutions. Finally, an independent expert panel was invited to conduct a comparative evaluation between the proposed design and an existing medical transfer bed using the Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (FCE) method.The evaluation results demonstrated that the proposed design achieved a higher overall score than the existing medical transfer bed. The integrated framework effectively transformed user requirements identified during the medical transfer process into prioritized technical characteristics and provided a systematic decision-making basis for the development of medical transfer bed concepts.