Fast-tracking user adoption through better Healthcare UX for apps and devices

Healthcare UX design plays a critical role in creating user-centric healthcare apps and systems that address user pain points like ease of use, data privacy, and intuitive user interfaces.

A user or patient’s interactions and experiences with healthcare products and services are inherently personal and empathy-driven interaction is integral to the success of healthcare products. Healthcare UX is all about designing products and services with a focus on enhancing the user experience.

The primary focus of healthcare UX design is creating products that users find intuitive, easy to use, and that encourage strong user engagement and retention. However, healthcare UX comes with a unique responsibility - poor design can lead to significant consequences. For instance, an inconsistent reading from a heart rate monitoring app could result in medical negligence and necessitate a product recall.

Therefore, UI/UX design agencies entrusted with developing healthcare apps must exercise extreme caution to prevent misinterpretations stemming from subpar design. Additionally, they must give utmost consideration to ethical aspects when designing healthcare products.

Why Healthcare UX is Important?

Recently, Aufait UX conducted a survey to identify barriers users face in the adoption of health and wellness apps. The survey results shed lights on insightful facts.

• 39% of people do not use health and wealthness apps as there is no evident proof of efficiency of these apps.
• 31% of people have data privacy related concerns when it comes to using healthcare applications
• 17% of people face the problem of not being able to find relevant apps for their needs.
• 14% of people are challenged by the socio-cultural stigma present around use of health and wellness apps.

The key learning from the survey is that healthcare apps need to address the basic user pain points such as ease of use, data privacy and intuitive UI to fasttrack the user adoption. This is exactly what healthcare UX designers are expected to do. They make the apps user-centric and tailored to meet user expectations.

Digital healthcare systems encompass different types such as remote consulting systems, medical transcription systems, health monitoring systems, and electronic medical records. At Aufait UX, we have had a chance to work on several different healthcare projects. And in this article, we hope to share an overview of those projects and our experience working on them.

A Brief of our Healthcare UX Projects

Information is an integral part of healthcare systems. And indeed, one of the most challenging aspects to manage as well. Much time and effort get lost in collecting information, sifting, storing, processing, and transferring. By establishing healthcare UX principles, it is possible to create a structure that delivers the right information at the point of need. 

Our journey of designing healthcare systems has been rewarding. To be able to provide value to incredible service sectors like healthcare is indeed a gratifying experience. We have successfully used our expertise and knowledge of UX design trends to provide worthy inputs in creating interfaces that are usable and enjoyable. Let me walk you through some of the healthcare projects that we are proud to have developed.

Video call screen of our online consultation project

Medical Transcription Systems

In our fast-paced digital dependent lifestyle, we are all running for time. Our memory has become weak. Doctors simply do not have time to write down clinical summaries, surgical notes, or convert audio recordings to written documents for insurance or record-keeping needs. Similarly, patients often find it difficult to remember everything the doctor said during the consultation. Medical transcription systems provide a viable solution to this problem. These systems process, transcribe and convert voice recordings. 

We had the opportunity to design such a medical transcription app that helps patients record their medical consultations and transcribe them in desired languages. 

It has an easy design where a patient can start recording a session by clicking on the record button at the bottom of the screen. He can also choose the detection language or set it to auto-detect and also choose a transcription language. 

For this app, we created a simple user flow. A patient wanting to record a doctor consultation must first record their symptoms, which will be transcribed and saved. Later, they can record the consultation with doctors, which will also be saved in a similar manner. As the recording proceeds, the audio will be converted to text and displayed on the app screen.

Once a session recording is over, the patient can then save them. While saving the session, patients can also add prescriptions by taking photos or choosing corresponding images from the gallery. When the session gets saved, the app screen will display the entire information in separate tabs named Symptoms, Consulting, and Prescriptions. Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), the prescription will also be converted to text and displayed. 

The app also includes a feature to give patients reminders about follow-up visits and medicine intake. Patients can set alarms to get reminders from the app. 

Telemedicine

Today, convenience has become synonymous with care. Whether it is patients or doctors, they neither want to compromise on their needs nor to waste time in the process. Telemedicine is an excellent approach that facilitates convenient care. By allowing doctors and patients to connect to each other virtually, telemedicine eliminates the obstacles relating to time and location. 

Our experience working on an online consultation project was quite uplifting. We wanted to create a design that stands out for its user-friendliness and makes it easy for doctors to consult patients. With that in mind, we designed a virtual waiting room to let doctors manage their patient appointments easily. 

The left part of the screen shows the waiting room where doctors can view their appointment status (completed, pending, etc.) and the list of patients in order of consultation. Doctors can initiate chats with the patients and also conduct video calls with them. After consultation, doctors can record their observations, diagnosis, and prescriptions in the app itself and share the prescriptions as a pdf file with the patients. 

Our aim while designing this online consultation app was to simplify consultations in the best way possible for both doctors and patients. By implementing the healthcare UX design process thoughtfully, we were able to achieve a satisfying result. 

Electronic Health Records (EHR)

Often, healthcare professionals have to walk through a maze of information. We all know well about the inefficiency of paper documents and manual documentation systems. It is cumbersome and difficult to manage. Electronic health records emerged as a method for better organization of information in the healthcare sector. Their benefits are many and promising. They are reliable, safe, and provide an easy means to coordinate and share information. 

One of our experiences with electronic medical records was the design of a clinic management solution. We created a design that offers seamless patient management. From doctor appointment booking to video consultations, e-prescriptions, and medical records management- our clinic management solutions cover all important aspects of a clinic. 

Our design efforts succeeded in simplifying doctor appointments in a clinic incredibly. With a well-thought-out UX design, we were able to create an app that makes creating and managing appointments a breeze.

Typically, a clinic will have several doctors, and each doctor will have their own schedule. When an appointment request is received, finding a doctor’s availability and booking a free slot is not as easily done as said. Our clinic management app design greatly simplifies this process by predetermining a doctor’s availability calendar. Take a look at this screen below.

All the appointments with patient name, doctor name, and appointment schedule is displayed. The admin can filter appointments according to date, department, and doctors from the left side of the screen. The admin can view appointment slots for all doctors and slot status- like, available, cancelled, booked, and free (marked in different colors) from the right side. Thus for an admin, booking new appointments as well as managing existing appointments is simple and hassle-free.

The app also simplifies the effort of doctors by designing a separate patient page for speedy analysis of health conditions and symptoms of each patient. A compact dashboard lets doctors analyze patients’ medical history and body vitals. The doctors can also manage their schedule and consulting periods using a doctor schedule creation feature. 

With an easy and quick booking experience for patients, guaranteed access to care in times of emergency, and secure storage for medical records, the clinic management solution is an excellent example of how healthcare UX can improve doctor consultations.

Remote Monitoring Systems

Post-operative care is an unavoidable part of any surgery. It helps patients to return to their normal lifestyle and regain their strength. Proper post-operative care aids faster recovery. Usually, the recovery time varies with the type of surgery and patients’ health conditions. Even after being discharged from hospitals, patients must be monitored closely at home till some time. This is where remote monitoring systems find applications. 

To provide care beyond hospitals after cardiac surgeries, we developed a remote monitoring app for patients. By connecting this app to a medical devices kit given to patients post-operation, hospitals can track the health conditions of patients remotely. The devices perform various tests like BP, ECG, blood oxygen levels as prescribed by the cardiologists. The results are then sent to them for monitoring. 

Thus, the app helps doctors and nurses to follow up on the patients’ health and provide immediate care whenever required. The app provides both voice and video call support. It also gives patients access to articles from medical professionals to help them develop better heart care routines. 

Lifestyle App

Today, people are becoming increasingly conscious of their health. They are willing to make efforts to cultivate a healthy lifestyle. Practices like meditation, physical exercises, and nutritious eating habits are being adopted by many. But most people face the problem of not being able to stick to resolutions. In a world ruled by mobile apps, it is only natural that apps that help to solve this bottleneck be developed. 

We were delighted to offer our UI UX design services to develop a lifestyle app that helps people build healthy habits. The app focused on developing healthy food and exercise routines. The fun and quirky design of the app made it attractive and user-friendly. Apart from providing guidance and articles on various topics like meditation and exercises, the app also acts as a platform for healthy lifestyle enthusiasts to connect. 

The app lets users share their life events, start discussions on health-related topics, and also buy organic nutritional health substitutes.  With features like notifications and rewards, the app gives its users a wonderful means to keep track of their mental and physical health.

The Future of Healthcare UX Design

UI/UX design plays a fundamental role in improving patient outcomes and will continue to be an integral part of evolving empathetic user-product interactions. As technology and UX design advance in tandem, Aufait UX actively monitors these changes and remains open to implementing newer tools to create more inclusive and comprehensive user experiences.

The future of healthcare UX design revolves around three core values:

• 1. Accessibility
• 2. Adaptability
• 3. Clarity

The continuous wave of innovations can either challenge or facilitate the achievement of these goals. Therefore, it is crucial to integrate emerging technologies within existing accessibility standards, ensuring that designs remain compatible with assistive tools and the new healthcare industry devices, like telemedicine and wearables.

UI/UX design remains a critical factor that can either make or break the user experience. This is why our UI/UX design services are committed to reaching previously underserved audiences and delivering value through adaptable and accessible care options

In a nutshell, the future of healthcare design aims to create a system that works for everyone, everywhere. This includes simple navigation, assistive tools, and enhanced usability features to make healthcare more equitable and accessible. This vision drives us to design healthcare UX that accommodates users in their preferred settings and methods of care delivery.

FAQ on Healthcare UX

1. What is UX design in healthcare?

UX design in healthcare or healthcare UX design refers to creating user-friendly and effective digital experiences for healthcare applications. It is crucial because it improves patient outcomes, enhances user satisfaction, and eases healthcare processes.

2. How does UX affect healthcare?

UX design in healthcare improves patient experience, provider efficiency, and data security by creating user-friendly interfaces and ensuring regulatory compliance.

3. What is the future of healthcare UX?

The future of healthcare UX design revolves around creating patient-centered, accessible, and patient-centric experiences. With newer technologies and innovative design strategies, healthcare can enhance outcomes, cut costs, and streamline the patient journey.

4. What are the key challenges in healthcare UX design?

Challenges include maintaining security and privacy, accommodating various user levels of tech-savviness, ensuring accessibility, and complying with healthcare regulations.

5. How can healthcare UX design improve patient engagement?

Healthcare UX can enhance patient engagement by creating user-friendly portals for appointment scheduling, access to medical records, and remote monitoring, as well as providing educational resources.

6. What role does accessibility play in healthcare UX design?

Accessibility ensures that healthcare applications are usable by individuals with disabilities. It is essential for compliance with laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and European Accessibility Act ( EAA).

7. How can healthcare UX design support healthcare professionals?

Healthcare UX can simplify workflows, reduce data entry errors, and improve the overall efficiency of healthcare providers, enabling them to focus more on patient care.

8. What are the best practices for designing healthcare mobile apps?

Best practices include intuitive navigation, clear labeling of features, responsive design, and patient-centric features like medication reminders and telehealth options.