In order for medical providers at WellTrust Medical to prescribe new rounds of medication every 30 days for Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) patients, the patient needs to provide the provider with information related to the severity of a list of known symptoms related to deficiencies in hormone levels. This data is used to compare how they currently feel versus prior to their previous medication refill. The provider will assess the data and make the determination to increase, decrease or stop dosage of medication. This section of the UX projects showcased deals with solving the issue of how we allow the patient to effectively communicate that data to the provider.
The problem WellTrust was having is that this process of getting the symptom information to a provider who may have 100+ patients that all need refills at extremely varying times was manual and broken. Many patients didn't even know that they needed to communicate with their provider, or medical assistant before refills were prescribed and would become aggrivated when no refill was ever shipped to them. The company realized that this was a major oversight in their process and I was tasked to help solve this issue.
Due to HIPAA laws, I did not have direct access to patients so I had to rely on internal SMEs to help provide information about the issues that patients were having with the current process, and additionally understand the issues of both the medical providers and their medical assistants in being able to get the information needed to prescribe refills.
The company needed a fast solution so that they could test it with a small sample of patients and roll it out to the entire group if successful. I initially worked with the product manager (PM) and got the necessary business requirements for the project and then conducted user interviews with numerous medical providers and assistants to get a solid understanding of the user issues. After all the information was gathered and understood, user flows were created to visually outline the proposed new process. All stakeholders agreed and I began to work on sketches and wireframes to outline the communication the company would need to engage the patient and then the interaction that the patient would need to take to successfully submit the subjective symptom information to their provider.
A journey map created to visually outline the journey of how an organic user becomes a patient.
Since 80% (thousands in numbers) of WellTrust's / Male Excel's patients are on phone-based mobile devices, I created wires, interaction solutions and clickable interactive prototypes for mobile first. All usability solutions needed to be crafted primarily for users who were on a mobile phone device with desktop users coming in second place. We wanted the patients to be able to quickly perform and complete this required process so that it did not seem like a chore, but there was a lot of medically required information that needed to be captured.
For areas of the flow where the company already had the information about the patient, I opted to have that information pre-filled but gave the patient the ability to edit/update the information before submitting. I also wanted to make sure that the patient had an expectation of what the process entailed so, I added in section markers that let them know at what point in the process there were working from and how much was left (utilizing the Goal Gradient Effect). Other design pattern considerations were added in so that the patient had clear understanding as to what to do, how to navigation and given a sense of freedom in filling out the application or being able to go back and make changes. Notifications were also baked into the flow to inform the user as to the status of actions they took. If they successfully updated their payment card, the system would notify them -- as it would if there was any error and either allow the user to fix the error or direct them in what to do next if the error was fatal in the web application.
One last thing to deal with was to figure out how to inform the patient that they needed to fill out the form and submit it prior to getting their refills. The solution ended up being very simple. I was also managing a project called the patient communications projects where we were identifying gaps in medical communications with patients, and I had our copywriter write up messaging for patients and we designed a HIPAA-compliant email and accompanying SMS text with a secure link and button to open the form.
After initial sample testing of the updated workflow, the company was so happy with the conversion of patients completing and submitting the refill forms that they made it the standard for all patients in the system. We monitored conversions and they went from a dismal 10% completion to 98% completion within the first three months.
One of the informative patient communication SMS texts that notifies patient to do form.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.