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MyCare: Reimagining Telehealth through Emerging Technologies
Summer internship project at Optum, a health tech wing of United health group.
Role: I had an opportunity to join Optum, a health-tech wing of the united health group, as a user experience design intern. Each intern was given a unique problem statement and our role was to work closely with our mentors in researching, designing, and testing. Weekly feedback from the entire design team also helped us in shaping the solution.
Duration: 8 weeks
Optum MyCare product video
Along with the broader problem area of ‘reimagining telehealth and telemedicine’, there were a few questions or directions to help me start with like, how might we increase the satisfaction rate of the patient using the telemedicine application? How might we combine telehealth-telemedicine in a single application? and so on
My secondary research started with the book ‘E-health, telehealth, and telemedicine - a guide to start-up and success, which helped me in understanding the history of telemedicine to special applications like telemedicine in prisons, military settings, tribal community healthcare, etc. In parallel to this, I started a conversation with one of my friends, who is a doctor. These activities led me to choose ‘rural India’ as my target group where additional user groups can be included like ASHA workers, Midwives, etc.
Initial direction of the project - Telehealth for rural India
Soon after my first presentation, I realized that the business lens is completely missing in my approach. Optum serves the US market at present and my initial project direction might not add value to the organizational objectives and goals.
I switched back to secondary research, where I tried understanding the existing solutions in the telehealth industry like doxyme, teladoc, MDLive, etc.
The objective was to find out the problems faced by the users with the existing applications. Reviews on AppStore/Playstore (especially the ones rated 1 star) were mapped, and multiple themes were formed. These were, Scheduling, waiting, customer care, or even the pain points on the basic functionality that is audio-video reliability.
Primary Research
The general attitude of patients towards telemedicine applications was recorded.
Role play with a doctor on a video call, imitating a teleconsultation was performed.
Statements from the user interviews were then associated with emotions.
For example, “I have a belief that if I am accompanied by my husband, I would not be diagnosed with any serious problems." with ‘Belief’, “Doctor asks me to move close, move right, etc. looking at my eyes in a video call. I Doubt - Is he able to see me clearly?” with ‘Doubt’ and so on.
Themes/keywords from the research were mapped on the journey -
Before the consultation,
During the consultation, and
After the consultation.
Redefined Problem statement
Design a smart, secure, and reliable mobile application, delivering complete virtual medical care, right from creating awareness to delivering medicine to users at the right time.
Opportunities
Quick and easy access to a healthcare provider, using the most common digital device - A mobile phone
To improve the experience of the patient during the virtual consultation using AR/MR
Addressing the limitations of video as a medium.
Additional and improved care using Non-synchronous telehealth service for monitoring, awareness, and lifestyle/diet improvements, to help patients. (AR/MR)
Experience of the guest (the person who is accompanying the patient.)
Adherence of patients to the treatment provided by the doctor.
Inclusive design - Design that could work in the case of an aged/less tech-savvy user group.
From the opportunities, the above How might we statements were formed and prioritized.
Addressing the limitations of video as a medium had a better scope for using emerging technologies (which was one of the requirements). However, the broader journey of the patient was considered and a ‘to-be’ scenario was communicated using storyboards, before addressing the chosen part of the journey.
In the ‘before consultation’ phase of the journey, there were ideas like ‘Using Smart and personalized assistant that provide Context-based information at right times’, ‘Quick and intuitive ways of authentication/log in using gestures’, etc.
In the ‘during consultation’ phase of the journey, ‘AR Models for a better explanation of the problem/Condition’, and ‘AR filters applied by doctors by selecting specific regions of the body' were some of the ideas.
The phase ‘after consultation’ had opportunities like ‘Gamified Exercise sessions’, ‘Using Image recognition for detecting the calorie intake of the patient’, etc.
These ideas were rated based on the Impact or value that they could create, the feasibility of the execution, and the uniqueness of the idea. This step helped me in ranking the ideas and shortlisting them.
The designs were targeted at senior citizens and less tech-savvy users.
Voice commands and voice authentication along with traditional interactions (from the existing design system) were used in the design.
The shortlisted ideas were then designed and a click-through prototype was created. This was tested with the audience whom I had interviewed earlier.
Screenshots from some of the flows designed for telehealth application
Key findings from the testing sessions
Users not being able to recognize that it is using voice commands in the first place.
Mis-interpreting tags (tags that were used to acknowledge user's commands) as tap-able buttons
Need of using both their hands at the same time during the video call, which they can afford only if the device was fixed.
Senior citizens were comfortable with elaborate text explanations, whereas not being familiar with some of the interaction patterns used in the application
Based on these insights, the designs were modified and the new use cases were covered.
Actions based on the insights from the testing
Flexibility in the mode of interaction - Voice, and Touch based flows
Using Waiting Lobby to help users to take quick actions (like adjusting volume based on ambient noise) enabling a smooth video consultation experience
Doctor discovery in AR tries to bring consultation closer to an in-person consultation.
Smart Filters and Overlays help users to perform tasks mentioned by the doctor during the consultation
Enabling doctors to take quick notes and tag information with the keywords
User Interface Design of Optum MyCare application
The initial design had all the components and patterns from the existing Design System. But in the next iteration, the components were tweaked, and new components and patterns were added keeping the target persona in mind (aged/less tech-savvy)
Login flow and record symptoms flow
Doctor discovery using AR
Quick tips and waiting lobby
Smart filters and overlays
The internship ended with a presentation where the leaders from design and technology participated and shared feedback.
The program structure fitted well for the internship purpose by having an open-ended problem statement and continuous mentoring and feedback sessions from the team.
The key learnings were time-management, planning the project, dedicating the right amount of time to the different phases of the project, the importance of feedback and iterations, and understanding the role of the business lens in the project.
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