ER Patient Care Plan

HCA Healthcare wanted to increase patient retention following an ER visit. We created a custom care plan for patients within the MyHealthONE mobile app, aiming to simplify, humanize, and personalize the post-discharge experience. Patients would be able to book follow up appointments, view personalized care recommendations, and receive friendly reminders and check-ins using the app.

Problem Statement

HCA Healthcare wanted to increase the number of patients scheduling follow-up appointments after ER visits, as well as reduce operational costs. Post-visit scheduling had typically been handled manually by operational staff individually calling patients, which often led to a long queue and delays between the ER visit and follow-up call. In addition, many patients are overwhelmed by the amount of information they received during discharge of an ER visit and don’t know what to do next. We aimed to close the loop between a patient leaving the ER and continuing onto the next steps of their care journey.

My Role

I was the Lead UX Designer throughout the project. I led a small team of designers, and heavily collaborated with development teams and stakeholders to understand the problem, create requirements, and reach the end solution.

Process

Research Insights

We partnered with an outside design research agency to determine strategy and direction for this effort. Through patient interviews, we uncovered a few driving insights:

1. Patients are digitally engaging with healthcare.

2. Convenience is valued over confidentiality.

3. Convenience offered by digital doesn’t (always) replace the human connection.

4. Hospital affiliations matter for patients with chronic conditions. They feel reassured by the access and network.

5. Patients find the discharge instructions received after their visit of little utility.

Ultimately, we found that acuity and patients’ perception of the ER as part of their continuum of care are the critical influencers of their likelihood to follow-up. Those less likely to follow-up require additional guidance, education and handholding in order to coordinate care.

Patient Journey and Messaging

We outlined the patient journey from being admitted to the ER to attending a follow-up visit, and determined where interaction opportunities were. Once we had a general idea of where MyHealthONE could help a patient after their ER visit, we decided to map out the detailed interaction points, specifically around patient messaging.

Usability Testing

As we moved towards mid-fi wireframes and prototypes, we ran multiple usability studies around the Care Plan UI, as well as the messages we’d be sending out. We screened for patients who had recently been discharged from the ER. We found that patients were motivated to complete their care plan when it was presented as a checklist of to-do items, and that they clearly understood what their next steps were. 100% of users were able to complete their Care Plan and found value in it. Users repeatedly mentioned that the Care Plan would have been extremely valuable during their recent ER discharge process. They appreciated being able to book their follow-up appointment in the app, and found the the recommendations helpful. When presented with the initial text message, 87% of users said that they would open the link and download the app to view their Care Plan.

High Fidelity Comps & Prototype

See the images below for screenshots of the final design. We plan to pilot this feature in a few select hospitals to learn and iterate upon it before scaling it enterprise-wide.