Take care with Carebuddy
Healthcare assistant app design for St. Joseph's Hospital
Introduction
Carebuddy for St. Joseph's is a free app that will guide users of the hospital every step of the way, from making them ready for upcoming appointments to after their visit is finished. In this project, we focused on the day of the patient visit. Researched and interviewed healthcare providers and healthcare users to find a better way to improve the hospital visit experience.
Define
Have you ever felt unsure, worried or dreaded your upcoming appointment at the hospital?
About two in five (39%) Americans have felt anxious before going to a doctor's appointment.
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Feeling Overwhelmed
Feeling Unprepared
About (38%) Americans have felt they didn't have enough information to help them prepare for their visit.
This causes people to avoid seeking medical attention even if they are seriously ill.
How Might We...
Provide patients with expectations for the day of their appointment at St. Joseph’s, so they feel more confident before they enter and when they exit.
Discover
To find the pain point from both sides, we interviewed 7 healthcare users and 3 healthcare providers from St. Joseph's hospital and did a field trip in St. Joseph's hospital to find some more details.
Healthcare Users
7
3
Healthcare providers
from St. Josephs
Field trip in St. Josephs
1
Quotes from people
"I was looking for this orthopedic when I spoke with them, and I told them exactly what
I needed. They still got me the wrong doctor."
"I appreciate appointment reminder texts and what to bring. I tend to ignore email reminders because there is so much information in the beginning and the end, that I don’t even look at the important part."
"How do I get there faster? Where do I go? Where do I pay? All the signage is horrible."
"Feelings of being cared for instills a level of confidence that I have in them (the doctor) when going to my appointment."
From our interviews, the pain points we heard revolved around needing help with navigation, being connected with the right doctor, knowing exactly what to bring in a clear way and expectations for appointment visits. They also want to feel they are being cared for during the whole process.
Analyze the Content of the Interview
Insight
All three are essential. To get started, we want to focus on communication and visualization.
Based on what we heard, we synthesized our research into three main insights on why users don't feel confident about appointments.
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Lack of visualization of information, it is not straightforward.
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Communication between hospitals and users, users need quicker access to appointment information.
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Education on some of the essential information to get started.
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User persona
Jenn is a patient of St. Joe’s. In her ideal user journey, she should feel prepared and comfortable for her appointment and during her visit, and be able to keep track of the next steps.
Design
Site map
Wireframing
Low-fidelity Wireframe
Intro video
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Here is carebuddy. Carebuddy will accompany your appointment journey when you enter and when you exit, so you will not feel lost.
Five Main Features
Homepage
On our homepage, we have tickets for all upcoming appointments and current doctors, and it will also mention the forms that need to fill.
The ticket can help visualize appointment information clearly so users can easily understand when or where their appointment is.
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Each color represents the different departments in St. Joe's, so it would be easier for users to find their way.
The checklist of things to bring and important reminders helps users keep all of this information in one place.
This is a video message from your doctor. After you make your appointment, you can view this video to get a first impression of them. This provides users with a first human to human connection with their doctor and helps them feel more comfortable
The map can be followed directly to the location and department of the appointment.
The appointment summary helps keep track of medical records and the next steps for users.
In the future state of this app, we are considering adding a chatbot for quick questions, community groups for the patients to support each other, and educational articles resources for reading.
Develop
Carebuddy would take around four months to build, with a team of app developers, UX designers, graphic designers, marketing agencies, medical records companies, and HIPPA. Although the app is free and does not bring direct revenue, here is how it helps the service to get the benefit.
Thanks to St. Joseph's Health sponsoring the project
Team members
Minahil Kasher
Jihye Kim
Yiran Chi
Year
2021