HealthCAN
is a Health app designed to help ease the stress on the healthcare system. It provides online diagnosis with doctors, medicine shopping, and health monitoring.
Role: Visual, Interaction, Research
Duration: October.1 - November.15, 2021
Challenges
According to research, elder and long-term care are quickly becoming one of today's most difficult healthcare concerns. According to research, the number of individuals aged 60 and up in the world is predicted to increase by 56% between 2015 and 2030, from just over 900 million to almost 1.5 billion. The worldwide population of adults aged 60 and more is predicted to reach two billion by 2050.
While the population demographic has changed over time, the health care delivery model has not. The current model was developed when the average Canadian was 27 years of age and had a shorter life expectancy than today’s adults, whose average age is 47 and who can expect to live longer lives, accompanied by multiple, complex health care issues.
HealthCAN aims to：
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Ease the hospital visitor flow rate in high traffic area
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Shorten the patient's travel and waiting time
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Provide easy access to medication and health products to the patients
Voice From Users
To kick off the project, I have conducted a secondary research and interviewed 5 target users about their experiences with completing doctor appointments.
To narrow down the design problem, I listed several questions that I want to have answers to after user research. I kept an open mind and considered everything about my customer by listening to them and learning about the complexity of their needs
Frustrations
It is difficult to find a good doctor or hospital close to me.
I need to monitor my father's health status but I cannot be with him 24/7.
I often misplace my prescriptions and medical reports which I can't find them when needed.
It is inconvenient to get prescriptions at the Pharmacy every time since you can get almost everything online these days
Select Doctor
The ratings, reviews, and location of the specialist are important to me
I want to find the best specialist for my parents, thus it is important to see the reviews of the hospitals and specialists.
Experts gender is important to me
Unable to find the experet that I am looking for near my home
Doctor Appointments
The wait time is too long but the actual time to see the doctor is very quick. There is no need to see the doctor in person.
My children are busy at work, I don't want to bother them to take me to visit the doctor.
Medication
I would like to compare the medicine prices before purchase
The nearest pharmacy is still far from me, I wish the medicine can be delivered to my house.
I'd like to book appointments for my family member
Notify me with coming up appointments
We spent the majority of time waiting to see the doctor even we have book the appointments.
Health Documentation Management
be able to show all my medical history when visiting a new doctor
User Persona
Goals
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Wants to see a proper doctor easily.
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Wants to compare different medicines and have them delivered to home.
Frustrations
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It is hard to manage in-person appointments and keep all the information in the head.
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Hassle to visit better doctors.
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Limited access to medicines.
Ileana
Age:
Occupation:
Family Status:
Location:
65 years old
Retired
Empty Nest Family
Edmonton, AB
About
Ileana has retired from work and living by herself. Her children are working in different cities. She has been diagnosed with Osteoarthritis and Hypertension due to an increase in age. She visits different specialists frequently to receive treatment and prescriptions from the doctor near her house. She is not completely satisfied with the specialists she currently visits but has no choice due to a lack of access to better-rated specialists. The travel time to visit better specialists is too long since she does not have access to a vehicle. She also wants to compare different medicine before purchase and have them delivered to home.
Key Research Insight
Here are some reviews which I found:
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Need to monitor the elderly's health status but can't be with them all the time
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The hassle to visit doctors (access to vehicles and waiting time)
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Limited access to medication and health products
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Needs to manage the medical files and appointments in one place
These are the main obstacles for the elderly to access health care of their free will. Therefore, I identified my opportunity area as a virtual care experience featuring one-step services.
The app is suitable for all public, specifically the elderly age 60 and above who need to visit doctors and purchase medicines frequently, may require health equipment’ support daily. Also, the elderly’s guardian/ family relatives who age from 28 to 59 years old are busy with work but need to spend time taking the elderly to see the doctors and taking care of them.
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The online doctor diagnosis allows the doctors to talk to their patients online to save patients’ time to visit the doctors in person if not required.
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Since the medical files are shared with all doctors, the patients can choose to talk with the doctors that are far from them to balance the stress on the healthcare system as some areas may be short on the doctors and somewhere may be less busy.
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The monitor function allows the elderly and their guardian to monitor their health through the app which decreases the need to have health care workers be with them 24/7.
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Meanwhile, the government can collect the medical data from the users to analyze and improve the healthcare system to suit the current needs.
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User Flow
Wireframes
I drew out sketches of the app's main features on paper. Main features like the flow to book an appointment, purchase medication, manage health-related documentation, and health monitoring.
Features
01
Personalized Home Page
Access to personal information, including health documentation, address, phone number and so on
You can see the status from the health monitor equipment
Upcoming appointments reminder
Search for doctors
Personalized medicine recommendations according to previous purchase history and presriptions.
02
Doctor Appointments
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User can search their doctor by name, location, or speciality.
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Each doctor has a profile provided with all necessary information including experience, patient reviews and ratings.
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Users can choose to chat, call/facetime, or book in-person appointment with the preferred doctor.
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Users can check all the appointments in personal calendar.
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Medication
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The app allows users to purchase medicines online and deliver to their doorstep.
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The users can also compare the medicines for the best price.
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File Management
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User can manage all their health related documentation in this page
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They can choose to upload health report, prescription and inovices
05
Health Monitor
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The app allows usersto monitor their health by connecting the app with the monitor equipment.
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The information can be send to doctors for future diagnosis
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Family member can also access this information through their app if given permission
High-Fidelity Protoype
Conclusion
What did I learn?
This is the first app I ever designed and it has been a challenging and satisfying journey to see my idea turning into a clickable product. During the development of this project, I realized how important the research stage is. Before conducting the user research, I had a general idea of what my app suppose to look like. However, after completing the research, I found out there is a distance between the designer’s understanding of the world and the user’s understanding. It sets the foundation of the app which tells me how to build a solution around the problems that were identified.
What are the next steps?
This will be phase 1 of the project within a timeframe of a month and a half. The app will have several future enhancements to go through including:
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Make the app accessible to users with visible impairments by enabling a dictation feature that helps them navigate the app
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Allow linking multiple profiles under one account. Through this, users will be able to book appointments for their family members.
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Add "favourite" function to save preferred specialists which allow users to find them easily in the future.
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Provide more pharmacy options to allow users to compare the product and the price to save money and time.
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Enhance the app's security and privacy ability.
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The final and future form of this app will include a doctor portal.