Altera EMR Integration

Stakeholder Interviews:

I conducted in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including doctors, nurses, and administrative staff, to gather insights about their experiences with the existing referral system. This helped identify critical pain points, such as communication gaps and inefficient workflows.

User Research:

To further understand user needs, I conducted surveys and observational studies involving both referrers and patients. This research revealed common challenges faced during the referral process and informed potential design solutions.

Analyze Current State:

I mapped out the existing referral process to visualize workflows and pinpoint inefficiencies. Flowcharts highlighted bottlenecks, such as delays in communication and information transfer between teams.

One of the main findings was that referrals with unclear names, such as “P360” and “myStrength,” were not easily understood by doctors. They often didn’t know the use cases for these types of referrals compared to more intuitive names like “Diabetes,” leading to confusion and hesitation in using certain referral options.

Additionally, the eligibility for different referral types for each patient was not visible on the referral screen, forcing healthcare professionals to perform additional steps to verify this information. These issues created unnecessary friction in the referral process, contributing to the underutilization of internal referrals.

Develop User Personas:

Based on research findings, I created user personas representing various stakeholders. These personas captured the distinct goals, frustrations, and needs of each user type, ensuring the design would cater to their specific requirements.

Ideation:

During the ideation phase, I focused on addressing the key pain points identified in the analysis of the current state, such as the lack of clarity around referral names and the absence of eligibility information on the referral screen. The goal was to make the referral process more intuitive, reduce friction for doctors, and ensure the system was optimized for internal referrals.

I facilitated brainstorming sessions to generate innovative ideas for the redesign. Using design thinking methods, I explored a range of solutions to address identified issues, focusing on user-centric features.

Brainstorming Solutions:

• Clear and Descriptive Referral Names: One of the main ideas was to rename referrals with more intuitive and descriptive terms. Instead of ambiguous names like “P360” or “myStrength,” we explored using simple, condition-based names like “Mental Health Support” or “Diabetes Management.” This would allow doctors to immediately understand the purpose and benefits of each referral type without needing additional explanations.

• Referral Use Case Tooltips: Another idea was to implement tooltips or brief descriptions that would appear when hovering over a referral name. These tooltips would provide a quick overview of the referral’s use case and eligibility criteria, helping doctors make informed decisions without interrupting their workflow.

• Eligibility Indicators: To address the issue of patient eligibility not being visible on the referral screen, we brainstormed adding clear indicators on the interface. These indicators would display whether a patient was eligible for a specific referral based on their medical records, reducing the need for additional steps and speeding up the referral process.

• Prioritized Referral Suggestions: Another solution considered was a prioritized list of recommended internal referrals based on the patient’s history and current treatment. This would help guide doctors towards the most relevant internal referral options, further promoting their usage.

Wireframing & Prototyping:

These initial ideas were translated into low-fidelity wireframes, focusing on reorganizing the referral screen layout. We prioritized placing clear referral names and eligibility indicators front and center, ensuring that critical information was easily accessible to healthcare providers. Additionally, we sketched out different designs for the tooltip feature, considering both text-based and icon-based versions for clarity and usability.

Through a series of design thinking workshops and collaboration sessions with stakeholders, we refined these concepts, ensuring they addressed both user needs and technical constraints. I created a high-fidelity prototype using Figma, allowing stakeholders to interact with the proposed design and provided a basis for usability testing.

This iterative ideation process laid the foundation for the improved referral experience.

User Testing:

User testing was a critical step in validating the effectiveness of the redesigned referral system. I conducted think-aloud sessions with doctors and nurses, allowing them to interact with the high-fidelity prototype. This helped assess how the new referral names, tooltips, eligibility indicators, and prioritized suggestions influenced their decision-making process.

Participants were asked to complete a series of tasks, such as selecting a referral for a patient and navigating the updated interface. Their feedback revealed that the more descriptive referral names and the addition of tooltips significantly reduced confusion. The eligibility indicators were particularly well-received, as they saved time and eliminated the need for extra verification steps. Based on this feedback, I made minor adjustments to enhance the visibility of eligibility indicators and improve the flow of information between referral options.

The overall findings from testing showed a marked improvement in the ease of use, with doctors expressing greater confidence in using the referral system to make internal referrals.