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EHR: Redesigning the User Interface
The goal of the project is to improve the UI of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) with the help of medical professionals.
Benchmarking
Current Electronic Health Care systems used in Finland (EHR) lack intuitive design, important features, and a reliable way of procuring patient health history from other hospitals and facilities. There are numerous EHR systems used by Finnish health care provider, and thus leads to constant confusion and frustration for new medical staff as they must regularly learn new and complex system layouts.
An overwhelming majority of staff have problems with the record system used to keep track of patients. The turnover rate for medical staff in Finland has become increasingly high. A regular complaint from medical staff is the difficulties they encounter when trying to communicate with other facilities about a specific patient’s health record (Blood work, Biopsies, X-rays). This leads to a disconnected and disjointed method of ensuring a patient’s medical history is accurate for medical staff.
For nurses there is a need constantly to do some work with their patients thus they can not afford spending time by checking computer all the time. Mobility is crucial for nurses, for this reason information has to be accessed easily at any moment and at any time.
Goals
A simple and efficient user interface for new and existing medical professionals
A faster method of reviewing a patient's health history
An overall better user experience for EHR systems
An efficient communication system between medical departments and facilities
User study
Our main method of gathering data has been direct “one on one” interviews. I conducted my interview with a doctor user online via Zoom and transcribed it after on.
After we gathered data from our interviews, we started to create a journey map. We made 2 maps, one for nurse and one for doctor. We separated these 2 groups as each position has a different role in an EHR system and some functions may pertain to one group and not the other.
Data analysis
With the help of journey maps (affinity diagram) we defined the solution requirements and listed them in the Task Analysis table. After we broke down the needs of each group, we then combined the information and analysed what was needed for a reliable and efficient EHR system for both nurses and doctors. From this step forward we will be able to better define the systems features and functions. After defining the project requirements we created the scenarios of using our app by both users.
Creation process for low fidelity prototype
I was responsible for creation UI of a mobile app for a doctor user. I considered a patient’s information entering process as the main use case for my design as it was the main request from our interviewees. To provide our users with the most effective and time-efficient solution I included the possibility to enter a patient’s information by typing, voice recognition and photo recognition.
Low-fidelity (lo-fi) prototyping is a quick and easy way to translate high-level design concepts into tangible and testable artifacts. My low-fi prototype was made by using pen and paper. It was not quite readable. That is why I tested it only with my teammates. For me it was an opportunity quickly brainstorm how my use case scenario of a doctor entering a patient’s information “on-the-go” will look like.
Then I redesigned it on Figma considering given feedback and my new ideas. After that I addressed my user to test it.
My user liked our application. She commented to make 7 changes. But all those changes are based on specific details of a doctor’s work which cannot be known in advance by us, designers, and identified only during a user test.
Prototype development
The main feature when one does something for the health-related field is security. It was crucial to consider protecting all involved stakeholders’ personal information entered in our application. Login to the mobile application is protected by a user code or a face ID to secure authorized access to the system.
The security principle is considered in the design of a notification screen. A user can take an action by clicking “It was not me” button if there was an unauthorized access to the system.
The flow of entering information is easy to follow as the steps marked with numbers and a progress bar shows the current step for a user.
Testing
I conducted the main user test with the same user whom I interviewed during the user study phase.
The test was performed by me online via Zoom platform. I shared my screen, and the user could see my screens designed in Figma. She out loud described what she saw, how could she use it, what she liked / disliked and gave her comments. I received positive feedback and comments on what I need to change.
General feedback from my user:
“Your project looks professional. Maybe without specific details but looks good.”
My own contribution at different phases of the project
It was nice and easy to work in our team this semester. In the beginning, we did not know each other but we managed to agree on the project topic which would be interesting for everybody.
During the whole project, we shared the workload evenly and had plenty of meetings, in Zoom and on campus. As my teammates, I had a doctor user in my network. I interviewed her several times during the user study and the concept design. She commented on the scenarios for a doctor user, and I changed them accordingly to create a revised scenario version.
For our prototype, I took a charge of a mobile UI for a doctor user. I created the screens based on my scenario of entering a patient’s information “on-the-go”. I got back to my user and received her feedback to redesign my screens. During the prototype stage, we all worked on the shared Figma cloud and constantly helped each other by commenting and brainstorming together on how to improve our solution. When our high-fidelity prototype was ready, each of us created the test cases, and I set up a lookback platform for the usability test. I asked a new user who is an IT professional to test my screens. My teammate's users also tested my screens. Thanks to the lookback platform I could then analyze how the tests went and collect users’ feedback and successful rate completion. Based on those I have made changes to my screens for the final project presentation.
