KEY INSIGHTS

With the digital age, medical know-how has become a shared knowledge between peers, practical understanding, and medical research nowadays. The rise of health apps has built a trend in the self-management field. The communication between doctors and patients will, therefore, change drastically in the future. However, average appointments last only a few minutes; the waiting rooms are filled with people, and doctors don‘t have enough time for each of their patients.

OPPORTUNITY AREAS

We brainstormed different solutions as an answer to the problems and then set our focus on three main themes: “distance”, “waiting rooms” and “fear”. In secondary research, we also discovered that office-based doctors must provide home visits by law, and this frequently happens outside the office times. We decided then to focus our efforts on telemedicine as an answer to the physical distance between patients and doctors. We discovered that 60% of the German doctors would provide video-appointments only if required by law. Telemedicine is becoming a big trend, as it could be an excellent solution to release the organizational stress for many patients and doctors.

BENCHMARKING

We looked at several telemedicine platforms on the German and Swiss markets and tried to map the features and characteristics. This helped us understand where our product would then position itself in the market and also set the requirements for the platform.

The platform that we analyzed were AGnES, EHeR versorgt, Medgate, and Patientus.

How might we bridge the physical gap between doctors and patients?

Tele-medicine could be the answer to solve the problem of cramped waiting rooms and a way to give back time to the doctors for their patients.

CHRONIC HEART INSUFFICIENCY

We then interviewed a bedridden patient, a doctor‘s office manager, and a respiratory therapist. After we collected different opinions about telemedicine, we decided to focus on chronic diseases. Among the most common medical disorders there is chronic heart insufficiency, with more than 10 million patients in Europe. One every ten persons over 65 years old in Germany has chronic heart insufficiency.

Patients with chronic heart insufficiency must track their vital values (such as heart frequency, blood pressure, oxygen saturation levels, heart rate, and weight) several times a day and need different tools for each measuring.

They need to keep a healthy lifestyle and a healthy diet and not drink more than 2 L of water a day.

PERSONAS & USER JOURNEY

We identified three different Personas according to the various stages of the disease. We used an empathy map canvas to map out every pain point and need of the users. Upon this, we then developed a user journey.

THE CHALLENGE

Analyze the Megatrend “Health” and develop a strategic solution for a healthcare provider under the topic “Maximum Healthcare”.

THE OUTCOME

Cardian is a system for patients with chronic heart insufficiency. Users can track vital values as well as manage critical daily tasks. They can also get medical consultancy via telemedicine and are always one tap away from their doctor.

MY ROLE

Research, Ideation, Testing, Wireframing, UX/UI Design, Prototyping

1st Semester Master - with Raphaela Hartung & Andreas Jäger

Tutors: Prof. N Reichert, Prof. Biste

FOCUS GROUP

Since we didn‘t have access to the different stakeholders, we decided to ask our classmates to participate in a focus group. We assigned each of them a stakeholder and asked them to role-play. This helped us collect and prioritize the main features we would need to provide in the app. I was in charge of organizing and moderating the focus group.

Under the "Tasks" tab, the user can track the medicines taken during the day as well as track different habits.

The third primary function provides a direct connection with doctors and specialists. A doctor can also carry the diagnosis through video calls and follow up with the patients' history.

FIRST PROTOTYPE & USER TESTING

We created a rough prototype with swipe navigation to access different pages. The vertical swipe allowed the user to swipe through categories or tabs, the horizontal swiping to browse through lists (e.g., the monitored values) In an early stage of the design we ran a couple of user tests and understood that the swipe navigation was too confusing for the majority of users.

THE PRODUCT

The system "Cardian" consists of a wearable (a sensor) and a platform. Over the Dashboard Tab, we will provide smart suggestions and reminders to the patient.

The wearable sensor scans and tracks all vital values automatically for the patient and displays them in the app on the "Tracking" tab.