The Swedish and Providence Health Connect apps provide a simple way for patients
to find the exact care they need, when, and where they want it.

CASE STUDY

OVERVIEW:

As Principal UX, I strategized, envisioned, and directed the Express Care health experience across native app and responsive platforms. I’ve grown and lead a team of Researchers, UX Designers, to help define and execute the roadmap.

CHALLENGE:

How can we simplify healthcare?
Whoa… a very complex (but exciting) challenge!

First a little background… The Digital Innovation Group (DIG) is a start-up within Providence Health and Services, the 2nd largest not for profit health system. Providence has over 50 hospitals, 130,000 physicians, nurses, and caregivers. They offer Express Care across five states (AK, CA, MT, OR, and WA). “Express Care” is the umbrella term for four venues of care:

1. My Doctor – Schedule an appointment with your Primary Care Provider
2. Retail Clinic – Get treated at your local Walgreens
3. Virtual Visit – Arrange for a video call with a physician on your phone
4. At Home – Have a physician come to your location

When I started at Providence in August of 2016, I was continuing with the roadmap of the stand-alone Walgreens Retail Clinic scheduling app. The product was progressing successfully and I added new features frequently. Recently, my department received the go ahead to create a brand new product across mobile and web that offered ALL Express Care services combined.

Providence was ready for patients to find the Express Care service they need, when, and where they want it. This was a huge opportunity for me to change the confusing and laborious image of healthcare into a fresher, more convenient, and friendlier one. With the recent Providence and Swedish Medical Center merger, the challenge had quickly doubled with more unions possibly on the way.

I directed my team to design a successful new experience that offers a more convenient way
for patients to find the care they need, when, and where they want it.

 

SOLUTION:

As a UX Principal, I strategize the experience and direct a team of designers to create software for patients. My primary focus is on the product and the implementation on iOS and Android apps. I am also responsible for feature development, user story generation and a cohesive vision across web and native app platforms.

To get started, my team and I begin by asking many, many questions. Some more obvious, some more complex than originally thought and some really interesting, for example:

SOME INTRIGUING QUESTIONS:

• How can we increase appointments to achieve business goals?

• Which features will offer the best incentives for app use and retention?

• What table stakes do we need for max scale and flexibility?

• What does success look like and how will we measure it?

• What short-term goals will buy us long-term gains?

• What do patients value more, time or money? (It depends…)And about 3,000 more…

 

Some answers were easy, some came through research, and some turned into more questions. With such a deep and complex challenge, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. I like to rely upon product vision, the patient’s voice, and a flexible nature as essential for staying on target and making a positive change.

1. RESEARCH:

To establish a baseline of the digital health landscape we performed competitive reviews, interviewed providers, patients, and internal stakeholders.

While some findings were not surprising, our end to end research exposed deeper insights into what patients expected from their healthcare experience.

2. OPPORTUNITIES:

There were many problems we already knew we wanted to fix. Healthcare is rife with them. We started to develop some personas and narrowed down our key findings.

Some problems to solve:

• Patients having to reenter their information at subsequent appointments

• Lack of price transparency and options

• Confusing medical terms

• Outdated technological approach

• Difficult to get an appointment or the care you need

• Transform the idea of “healthcare” into more “preemptive care”

 

3. STRATEGIC VISION:

Stemming from research, discussions and informative white board sessions, we started to define the internal and external project goals:

What we want to achieve:

• A unified experience across platforms removing duplicative tasks and points of interaction

• Present a more personalized experience and really know our patients

• Make appointments easier to schedule

• Support a shared provider pool across services

• Enable easier brand application with white labeling system

• Create infrastructure for cross-promotion of services

• Increase sprint velocity by remove duplicative efforts to increase efficiency

 

My team and I scoped a long term solution and prioritized features. Working with DIG leadership, I concepted a brand new experience. This 360° view of a patient’s well-being offers services and establishes a lifelong relationship.

The platform is what I like to call a ‘Healthcare Concierge.’ By knowing our patient, it forecasts and recommends care based upon patient condition and interaction. Trust is built through proactive communication, health advice and most importantly, convenient access to care options.

The patient is at the center of the experience. Services are recommended to the patient so they don’t need to seek them out. (Original content modified per NDA).

Categories were mapped to services which brought patient value:

I concepted, designed, and managed a UX team to produce a new experience across
multiple brands and platforms.

 

5. TACTICAL:

To achieve short/long term product goals, handle asynchronous platform releases, and shifting priorities, I wanted to remove as much ambiguity as possible. I revamped how the UX department functions and delivers as a whole.

First, I created a product-wide design system. By having defined solutions at the ready, my component library provides answers to UX/UI questions before they’re asked, saving enormous amounts of production time. I also incorporated a number of communication and UX initiatives to increase velocity, product cohesiveness, and achieve business goals.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE:

Dramatic changes have been made to how a patient travels from the loading screen to an appointment confirmation or appointment conclusion screen. Patients are able to quickly navigate across services and decide which is right for them.

When deciding architecture, I rely heavily upon empathy. Our users are patients. They are using the product because they (or someone they love) are sick and need to get better immediately. Because of this scenario, we especially needed to keep the experience as simple as possible. My new system allows for quick navigation so patients can go wide and deep with content.

My design also provides quick access to their MyChart account. This service provides additional communication with their provider, test results, and access to medical records. The MyChart SDK is available once patients link it to their app account. We are investigating ways to modify the SDK further and deliver functionality closer to the surface.

A high level site map displays the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels with minor annotations.

UI AND INTERACTIONS:

Given a condensed and aggressive MVP timeline I had to work fairly quick. There was no time for traditional conventions like starting in black and white wires. We literally went from white boarding to lo-fi designs. Although not ideal, I was successful in providing accurate and comprehensive designs for upcoming deadlines.

For the designs, I wanted a minimum feel overall. This would allow patients to focus on what they needed. Both the Swedish and Providence app UI are 95% identical with only minor variations due to brand requirements. I am also exploring additional branding and personality upgrades to help deliver service context and details.

I designed an expandable time slot capable of displaying multiple times, numerous edge cases, outcomes, and scale issues. A newly revised iteration is currently being tested.

The screens above are just a small sample of this robust native application.

For greater sprint velocity and product scalability, I developed a UX Design System, a white labeling process for easier brand application, and established prototyping standards for easier research.

 

RESULTS:

My concept, rebranded “Swedish and Providence Health Connect”, has been well received by DIG leadership as well as the CEO and President of Providence.

We now are in the development stages of the MVP app with expected release in April (followed by frequent updates). Though the currently available Swedish and Providence app contains only a small fraction of the fuller vision, it’s early adoption within a large market is very promising. For additional measurements, I’ve also begun to incorporate Google’s HEART Framework.

As of February 2018, we’re on our way to surpassing downloads and appointments made for ALL of 2017 for both iOS and Android.

Metric values removed for confidentiality.

 

CONCLUSION AND LATEST NEWS:

I have grown a fledgling pre-MVP app, successfully pivoted with business goals, and primed it to become a personable healthcare platform ready for today’s modern patient.

My UX team has expanded from 2 individuals (myself included) to 5. I lead and manage Sr. and Jr. UX Designers on story development and Agile implementation.

I continue to partner with Research for monthly end to end testing, Product for new features and Engineering to push the patient experience.

I’m currently directing a comprehensive update to the Swedish and Providence Health Connect platform. This new version will have a simpler architecture for cleaner user flows, new patient centric communication features and dramatic UI updates. I’m very excited and confident this upcoming release will set the standard to simplify healthcare.

I have grown a fledgling pre-MVP app, successfully pivoted with business goals, and primed it to become a personable healthcare platform ready for today’s modern patient.

Let’s chat for a deeper view into the success of the Swedish and Providence Health Connect Apps.

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