We believe patient health records should be easily trackable, safely transferable, progressive and secure. The mission is to build a universally accessible and portable health record system for Africa's citizens.
For reach in under represented and unconnected citizens, we are driving scale by connecting citizens’ health data to already established national digital ID systems.
We have successfully empowered doctors to provide a seamless patient experience using our web app service and now needed to provide a way for patients to become custodians of the health data that has been generated. This set us out to build a mobile wallet-type app that will help users track their health information regardless of their primary facility, physician or location.
Thus my journey began.
In Africa, caregiving is hindered by communication blocks between patients and physicians. Siloed patient medical information and the general lack of patient involvement through out the caregiving experience is also a major contributor to this problem.
MedTrack allows facilities to capture a comprehensive picture of patient health information, medical history and other clinical data. We can design a solution that empowers patients to take control and have oversight over their health information.
The current challenge stems from a lack of sharable information and oversight over personal health information data. During research, our stakeholders expressed concerns around these three key areas:
A key line of questioning physicians mostly engage patients on are around medication history.
A key line of questioning physicians mostly engage patients on are around medication history.
A key line of questioning physicians mostly engage patients on are around medication history.
Create what will eventually become a mobile health wallet for Africa’s 1 billion citizens. A solution that will augment patient interaction with their physicians and other point of care services. The goal is to connect the three key areas under consideration.
A key line of questioning physicians mostly engage patients on are around medication history.
Diagnostic report are a primary source of information required by physicians to validate their investigations.
Clinical visits will be designed in a way to give the patient an overview of each encounter and the transactions involved.
Design a solution that helps users connect their health information records to their national identification system, and turn these ID card systems into a physical version of their MedTrack app.
Due to MedTrack's patient-centered approach, a solution designed around giving users an overview of physicians list with access to their medical data is a key requirement. Here, users can control and manage access to various encounters.
For patients in hard-to-reach communities, SMS technology will be their default access point. In Africa, SMS is a baseline technology that is common and familiar to most service transactions.
Most users will use the app as a point of reference when discussing medical history with doctors or other caregivers.
Glanceability was a key factor in determining certain design queues and choices. Using average day phrases and queues was also an important component to improve information assimilation.
There are three key success points; mapping medical information to a particular encounter date and time, proper tracking of medication dispensation and diagnostic report and lastly, securely sharing access to this information with physicians who may not be your primary caregiver.
Physicians and facilities are already generating patient data using the MedTracks web app. These data are centered around patient's prescription history, diagnostic reports (lap and imaging data) and clinical visits. The goal here is to provide a way for patients to become custodians of the health data that is being generated.
Originally not included was the Health Data section, which was later planned to serve as an engagement gateway for first time users. Here, the system could serve users with curated content based on the data they share. Tips on chronic disease management and other health tips can be good strategy to engage these groups.
Here, I designed high-level building blocks as components to help speed up design work throughout the app. Creating these components was also a great way to quickly test and swap out various ideas.
These were designed so styling could translate easily for the different OS and still maintain a native feel. Keeping this in mind, large element of the final design choices had to work for both iOS and the Android operating system.
Visiting the 600-bed-capacity Ridge Hospital was a great source of inspiration for this design choice. Ridge colour codes its ward to help patients and staff navigate the large multi-floor facility.
The idea was to reflect this in-app to help build muscle memory and reduce navigation guesswork for a better user experience.
When a user decides to approve access for when a physician makes this request, I use an in-app prompt with a subtle animation to reaffirm the user's action.
A great design cue was matching the red hue as a visual guide to connect the the lock icon and the required action ofRevoking a physician's access.
I broke the input fields down into blocks to match the Ghana Card numbering sequence and spacing - GHA 000 000 00 . The design decision here is to visually aid data entry and improve user experience with an added benefit of reducing entry errors.
I had started a conversation with physicians around patient diagnostics, the level of information required when consulting with patients, and how this information should be organized. The patient-physician information requirements were mostly centered around the type of request and its associated reports that would be needed to fulfil their investigations.
The three conversation areas were:
Labels and dosage information were among the most frequently discussed points of interest during my time with patients and physicians. Being able to clearly convey information here was a major point of focus.
Here, I designed elements to prioritise clear labelling for dosage information and the encounter point they were generated.
Conclusively, these came together pretty well. A clear, well-labelled visual interface experience with an excellent information hierarchy and a strong visual brand. Subtle visual animations improved user experience.
It was such an honour to be part of this project. Working on products that have direct effect on millions of lives are always a welcome challenge. Brainstorming through some of the solutions we came up with as a team was a great way to learn and contribute.
As a team, we quickly learnt that, our solution needed to present data in its simplest format. Removing all data distractions and only show relevant information to the user was a key requirement we weren't open to compromise on.
In terms of decisions I would have made differently, one area I'll definitely take a look at is our initial onboarding flow where we collect patient's health data such as allergies, blood groups and pre-existing conditions. A solution that makes sharing this information feel more natural would be a great one to explore. Hopefully I can do this for our next updates.
