Cura Health App

The Project

Our client , Cura Health Systems, was looking to develop an app and eHealth platform that would help caregivers to efficiently manage elderly patients in long term care homes.

The purpose of the app was to help caregivers:

  • Monitor and keep track of patients health statistics, vital signs, daily tasks, care plans, in real time and be informed of any changes.

  • Real-time communication and exchange of information with colleagues, doctors, pharmacists and next of kin to engage and inform about patients health.

  • Reduce error frequency and increase caregivers productivity.

The Team

2 designers, 1 project manager, 1 business analyst and 4 developers.

My Role

  • Gather requirements through quantitative and qualitative research studies (interviews, surveys, questionnaires), competitor analysis, to identify the pain points in patient management process.

  • Create design solutions that will help caregivers to provide better care to elderly patients.

  • Conduct usability testing such as A/B testing, surveys, card sorting, think aloud sessions to validate design decisions.

  • Proficient use of Sketch, InVision to create wireframes and prototypes.

The Challenge - Pain Points

Based on user research, I investigated the problem and whys to understand the context and specify user requirements.

  • Complicated and time-consuming new patient addition process.

  • Increase in error frequency due to tedious paper handling and documentation.

  • Lack of communication, co-ordination and delay in updating patients health statistics, vital signs, handover notes, medication instructions.

  • Lack of interaction with various parties that are part of the support ecosystem such as doctors, pharmacists, next of kin and 3rd part suppliers.

The Solution

Cura Health, helps caregivers to easily manage and track patients health. It provides solutions to improve communication, managing and monitoring of health statistics and reducing margin of error.

  • Simplified Patient Registration: Input forms were designed by making them simple, usable and delightful to fill. Since the patients registration demands loads of user data, input forms were intuitive and user friendly.

  • Enhanced Engagement Level: Caregivers can easily log patients vital data, change medication instruction, add handover notes and access reports timely to monitor patients condition. This improves efficiency, care and hassle-free interaction with patients.

  • Actionable Insights- Interactive health chart reports, real-time data and alerts help caregivers to understand patients health status, make informed decisions, if anything changes.

  • Better Integration in the healthcare ecosystem: With streamlined information, there is better interaction and integration with parties part of the support ecosystem such as doctors, pharmacists and family members. The call to action “Send to” allows caregivers to share reports with seniors.

Design Process

UX Research

The first step was evaluation of the project requirements and adoption of User-Centered Design (UCD) approach as per context. As initial steps into this project, I conducted stakeholder interviews to understand the expectations, market, vision, target users and strategy. Thereon, I conducted competitor analysis to understand the e-health products already in the market.

As the next steps into creating a strategic roadmap, I conducted quantitative and qualitative research to understand users needs, pain points and identify the requirements.

For User Interviews, 5 participants with the following screening criteria was done.

Age: 24 - 45 years

General Practioner / Caregiver Nurse Staff

Sketches and Wireframes

Some examples of wireframes and Screen Flows are shown below -

I like to sketch with classic paper and pencil. I view many mobile apps for inspiration and freely sketch different design solutions.


Review

The workflows were shared with stakeholders and feedback was discussed and captured. A usability test was planned and conducted to evaluate the task flow success metrics.

A mid fidelity prototype was used to test 5 key task scenarios. Participants were requested to Think Aloud as they performed the tasks .

Key Scenarios

  1. Adding Patient Profile: The goal of this task was to observe the new patient addition process enrolling in nursing home.

  2. Logging Patient Vitals : Cura allows adding patients vitals data to monitor patients health. Can users add medical data with ease? Does the user feel confident while logging in vitals? Does he expect any other metrics to be logged in? How simple is it to note Vital observations of the patient?

  3. Medication Instructions: What is the purpose of using Medication screen? Are you able to change medication frequency and add notes for the handover to another caregiver?

  4. Determining Overall Health Status : Do caregivers find report charts useful to interpret patients health information ? Can you change vital information and observe the patients health statistics? Do they know the various vital statistics available ?

Insights and Observations

  1.  Adding Patient Profile: Cura allows user to register new patients data with relative ease. User finds easy discovery for adding new patient profile. The drop down list shows limited range of profiles registered. Supporting a search function can lead to easy discovery of existing profiles and optimize the experience overall.

  2. Logging Patient Vitals : The medical data shows the metrics values recorded. The user expects the order of vitals to be re-arranged to map to their daily health care activities. Caregivers find it useful and easy to capture information as it allows them with hassle free handover with accurate information updated immediately. Easy discovery of readings and charts information allows them to monitor patients health progress and analyze health status.

  3. Medication Instructions: There is a slight learning curve involved when interacting with the widgets to change frequency. Adding notes works like real time and matches user mental model. 

  4. Determining Overall Health Status : Caregivers find interacting with charts productive and efficient. It helps them easy decision making  as they get an overview of patients condition in real time. Users are able to access vitals from dropdown list and become aware of various vital statistics available. They find ‘Send to’ feature useful to send report to seniors.

Mobile App

 

Results:

  • The project was implemented in time, in budget and in quality, with 5-star ratings.

  • Increase in caregiver productivity and engagement by 30%.

  • Error rate frequency was reduced to 5% due to real-time data, alerts and paperless productivity.