MediDoc
Take Control of Your Health
iOS App Design
Role
Product Manager - Researcher - UI Designer
TEAM
Richie Chen - Ramon Gamarra - Frances Biedenharn
Tools
Google Forms - Microsoft Excel - Paper Prototyping - Sketch - Marvel - Invision - User Interviews - Usability Testing
Do young professionals have a grasp of their own medical history?
n=35 survey responses
The Problem Space
Many young professionals are at a complicated and exciting part of their lives. They’re both digitally savvy and mobile, moving across the country and world for job opportunities. Many are at a stage in their lives when they’re off their parents’ health insurance coverage and are beginning to manage their own health. New city means new job, and new job means new health insurance plan, and new health insurance plan means new doctors and specialists. On the health providers' end, there has been a movement toward and significant advancements in the digitization of health records. Many millennials find themselves caught in the middle of the paper copies of the past and the digital records of the future, complicating the process of consolidating their medical histories in a single location.
Having your own up to date medical history is a necessity for quality healthcare and accurate treatment.
Individuals and families need a way to consolidate their medical history in a single location.
Key Statistics Confirming Hypotheses
Approach
User interviews revealed that individuals didn't have a solid understanding of their own medical health, stemming from the fact that they didn't keep a consolidated medical history, despite having an average of 3-5 medical appointments each year. Their own medical histories became even more obscure as they saw new doctors and specialists, often requiring the transfer of previous medical histories from previous doctors. We wanted to provide people with the ability to safely and securely request, share, and store all their medical documents in one place and also have them readily available via mobile device to access while in a doctor's office.
Initial Sketches
What usability tests Revealed
Usability tests of the lo-fi prototype revealed that the sensitivity of information in medical documents caused participants to pause and seek confirmation. While repeated text and multi-step verifications are often seen as redundant in other apps and websites, participants wanted the extra clarity and repetition to make sure they were requesting documents from the correct doctor or transferring documents to the correct doctor.
Even push notifications that appeared as banners on phone screens indicating a document was received from "Dr. X" made participants wary that the app was revealing too much information.
Initial Challenges
Releasing Medical Documents
Releasing medical documents - even if it is from doctor to patient - requires signing a HIPAA release form (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). We needed to provide a way for patients to sign a HIPAA release form with every request for medical documents from their doctors in a way that was in compliance with the law. We tackled this issue by implementing an e-signature feature within the document request task flow.
Storing Medical Documents
Storing sensitive information in a consolidated digital format always comes with risk. We wanted to provide the safest way to transfer, send, and store medical documents without compromising security. Web development consultants revealed that in-app messaging was the safest way to send and receive documents and that with an iOS app, medical documents could be safely gated behind phone passwords, logins, and extra features such as Touch ID and Face ID.
Moving to Mid Fidelity
What Usability tests revealed
While able to complete all the task scenarios presented (request a medical document, share a medical document, view a medical document from messages and save to documents), participants still wanted more confirmation that they were sending and transferring the correct documents, as well as more information as to why they had to sign the HIPAA release form to receive their own documents. In the next iteration (high-fidelity), we addressed all those concerns with more formal language for all action buttons as well as the ability to read and learn more about what HIPAA is.
Moving to High-Fidelity
Three Tested Task Scenarios:
1. Request your most recent medical documents from your previous doctor.
2. View the medical report your doctor messaged you, save it to your documents, and transfer it to a new doctor.
3. In your account, update your digital patient intake form to include your blood type.
Potential Partnerships
Better Doctor
Better Doctor is a B2B data provider that helps health care companies and doctors maintain up-to-date information databases. Their API allows customers to directly plug into their data. MediDoc could benefit from their verified Doctor-level data that could allow patients to more confidently request and transfer documents to and from doctors and specialists.
ZocDoc
ZocDoc is an online B2C reviewing and booking platform, connecting patients to doctors based on their needs and current health care coverage. MediDoc could benefit from a partnership with ZocDoc by tapping into their existing network of paying doctor and specialist subscribers. People often use the platform when finding new doctors and specialists, and MediDoc would allow them to quickly and safely share their medical histories with these new doctors sourced through ZocDoc.
Measuring Success
The team pictured success in two ways, the first of which would be are app users confident in the usability and safety of the app. This can be measured in the rate of abandoned document requests and transfers.
The second measurement of success pertains to app downloads and referrals. Word of mouth recommendations are the most effective method of acquisition. Do app users have a positive enough experience to recommend to friends?
Next Steps
1. Continue to test high-fidelity prototype with additional participants
2. Begin researching and designing the account portion of the user-facing mobile app
3. Being the research and design process for the doctor and provider-facing desktop app
4. Build out the instructional onboarding process that app users would face upon downloading the app